If you’re bored of strategy RPGs and really want an opportunity to sit down with a traditional game, then I suggest this title. If not, stay away, especially at retail price.

The plot’s weak, the characters blab on too much, and the whole deal’s very last-gen, but for the truly dedicated, it’s playable, I guess. Rent it if you're a tactical geek -- everyone else should forget it.

While the lag doesn’t technically make MLB 2K8 unplayable online, it’s bad enough to be a severe detriment to enjoying the game.

Which leads to the burning issue: outside of marketing it as its own product at retail (and making a ton of cash in the process), there's no reason why what truly defines Guitar Hero: Aerosmith (the music) couldn't have been offered as downloadable content.

Guitar Hero wrapped in a really good gimmick. Aerosmith is a fun and exciting band to the right people, but the core gameplay is too stale to really warrant anything more than an average score.

Damnation is not exactly a terrible game. As a shooter, it does the bare minimum required to be considered competent. It's just incredibly mediocre and pointless that it's made me wonder exactly how games like this even get the green light.

The musical combat and genre hopping madness of Battle of the Bands showed so much promise, it's just disappointing that the gameplay is too shallow to hold up in the long-term.

It's a mediocre game and a disappointing follow-up to the quite impressive "Legend." It does very little to further the series and offers much frustration in exchange.

The End is Nigh seems like the foundation for an exceptional, well-put-together brawler, with the look of a Triple-A title that could have been something more. But it also feels like a concept, a shell that only gets the basics right and doesn’t take that next step to become a more interesting, engaging experience.

The End is Nigh seems like the foundation for an exceptional, well-put-together brawler, with the look of a Triple-A title that could have been something more. But it also feels like a concept, a shell that only gets the basics right and doesn’t take that next step to become a more interesting, engaging experience.

It isn't what I would call a bad game but it's far from being a good one and the possibilities for it being great went unrealized.

I really can't stress how much fun NPPL Championship Paintball 2009 can be, provided you take it upon yourself to make it fun. Unfortunately, there's not much to keep the player engaged for the long run -- a fact exacerbated by the awkward animation, minor technical snafus, and the mid-nineties, Gen-X rut the soundtrack fell into.

A mediocore game that occasionally engages.

Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood isn’t a terrible game. On the contrary, it’s a game with a ton of unrealized potential that executes with the grain.

Ninja Blade provides a banal and vapid experience that only truly dedicated action junkies without any other plans could justify playing.

Ultimately, Lux-Pain provides a mediocre experience when it could have been a much darker Phoenix Wright. Had it taken up more adventure game elements and stopped being a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book without any of the choice, I might have been genuinely impressed.

The only thing that really differentiates it from similar Wii games are the Squeeball characters, but even they aren't enough to make Squeeballs Party worth picking up. Plowing through the 150 mini-games can be done in a day or two, but after a few hours in you'll find yourself not wanting to continue; most of the challenges stop being fun at a startling rate. The repetition is a killer, here.

As a home console game, though, it has a lot of trouble justifying its own existence. An old friend of mine had a way of describing games like this. She'd say (with a really entertaining British accent), "It's sort of like the later work of Phil Collins. It just sort of washes over you, occupying your attention, but eventually leaves you completely unaffected either way."

Last Rebellion is underproduced, underdeveloped, unrefined, unpolished, and ultimately forgettable. And yet, it possesses the foundations of something, that originally intended to strike for greatness.

If you can handle the game's intensity enough to stick with it for prolonged play sessions -- or if, conversely, you're perfectly fine with sporadically playing it for a few minutes at a time before switching it off -- then maybe Galcon Fusion is for you. If not, maybe you're better off picking it up for the iPhone.

Again is a mediocre game that provides nothing. Its story is nowhere near good enough to justify the interactive novel approach, the "spot the difference" psychic gimmick is miserable and sleep-inducing, and the characters themselves look like they've all escaped from a mental hospital and are playing around in the costume department of a community theater. Hotel Dusk this isn't.

To take a game with so much promise, so much potential, and do absolutely nothing with it is a crime. Naughty Bear is a flat, dreary, completely boring game that relies on its core premise without doing anything to expand upon it. It desperately wants to be seen as irreverent, edgy and funny, but it is none of these things.

Vanquish is a tepid and tedious game that simply doesn't deserve your cash during a period chock full of far superior releases. And I never thought I'd have to say that about a Platinum game.

It's simply a second-rate title that might have been good a decade ago, but doesn't need to exist in this day and age.

In the end, Front Mission Evolved feels like more of a lateral step. As a mech shooter, it's functional, but unremarkable.

If you're a Bond fan, you'll be routinely disappointed by Blood Stone, but you'll probably play it anyway. If you're not one, then I can't really stress enough that there are better games out there that don't crush my hopes and dreams.

Michael Jackson: The Experience mostly feels like a missed opportunity which could have not only honored the music, but the entertainer himself. As it stands, the game doesn't really offer enough beyond lackluster fan service and a few short hours of potential amusement.

For someone who actually enjoyed playing CSI: Deadly Intent, the minor gameplay improvements here only led to an inadvertent feeling of repetitiveness, minus the joy of those amusing cases from the last game.

The worst part is that MindJack's implementation of the shooter is so imbalanced and guileless that it actually harms the game.

There are far better shooters on iTunes than this, at the end of the day. They may be more expensive, and they may have dodgy business models, but they're simply better.

If you're looking for the total package, Homefront doesn't even come close. Gamers wanting a fulfilling story-driven single-player campaign should take the next bus to Playing Half-Life 2 Again Town. But fans of competitive multiplayer should at least give Kaos' latest a look, even if it's unlikely to replace their shooter of choice.

Check back a few weeks from now to see if Hoard has been patched. Add [twenty] points to my score if the crashing, text pop-up weirdness, and graphical issues some users are experiencing have been addressed. For now, buy at your own risk.

This one just fell flat. It uses an outdated weapon changing system that's more annoying than useful, doesn't do enough to engage the player in combat, and feels unfinished.

It's a small update that you could live without despite its $15 digital price tag. As a value proposition at $40, it's a laugh unless you missed out SSF4, which is easily one of the brightest and sharpest fighting games in the recent past.

Z The Game succeeds in bringing the classic strategy game to iOS, but in trying to remain faithful to the original it misses the mark for creating engaging gameplay that works on a touch screen.

Bodycount might have gotten more attention five years ago, but even compared to Black, it's unexceptional. The word "generic" has become quite overused in recent years, but if ever a game truly deserved it, Bodycount would definitely be a top contender.

A re-release of a 10-plus-year-old game that doesn't have enough new content to appeal to those who already own it and will be hard to adjust to for those who have no nostalgia for the original.

Videogame fans want something more engrossing and comic book fans want something with more fan service. Spider-Man: Edge of Time satisfies neither demographic, and can safely be ignored by everybody.

Truly a strange beast. As a fan of the series, I really wanted to enjoy myself, but the constant fighting with the camera, poor enemy AI in single-player, and terrible pacing keep this one from the top of my list of strategy shooters. It's not terrible by any stretch of the imagination... it's just not very good, either.

Perhaps this would have been a cute little game half a decade ago, but so close to the end of the Wii's life cycle, it smacks of Namco desperately trying to milk the minigame cow one last time. As an ironic celebration of the Wii's most compelling and infamous problem, Go Vacation's selection of tepid and shallow activities might serve some amusing merit, but I don't think even the "family demographic" this is aimed at could find much to enjoy here.

Nothing special. It looks fairly pretty and the game is decently put together, but it's barely even a videogame when you truly consider what it offers. With a combat system that's hollow even by brawler standards and a structure so blatantly circular that even gullible children would soon detect the pattern, Rumble Blast is a game that not even ardent fans should bother with.

Anybody who has played any other motion-based carnival adventure, however, will find nothing remarkable at play with this one -- not unless they really want to see animated raccoons screaming incomprehensible drivel at them.

As derivative as a game can get, and while we pour scorn on so many other games for rehashing themselves, something tells me this will get a free pass from many critics and gamers. That strikes me as ironic since Mario Kart 7 is the one game I'd hold up as the least deserving of any kind of leniency. It being an unadventurous and predictable retread, however, is only half of Mario Kart 7's problem. The other half is the fact that it's a lethargic and mundane game, easily outpaced by games that could be considered knock-offs of the formula Nintendo itself perfected.

Bejeweled is a good way to kill a little bit of time, and PopCap has done a good job with adding variety to the game types, but it is still a shallow title that doesn't require a lot of time, energy or commitment, and something that could get tired very quickly.

I hope against hope that studios calm down and learn a little restraint when it comes to exploiting these features, as this collection of clumsy, discommodious distractions is indicative of what can happen when developers forget the elegance of simplicity. New features are only worth including if they enhance an experience. When they get in the way of it, they should be axed on the spot.

My feelings about Analogue are nuanced. For every thing Love nails, there's another place where the experience falls short. The middle stretch doesn't live up to the standard set by the intro, but the finale is just satisfying enough to even it all out. If I had to sum up the whole game in one word, it would be "ehhhhhhhh". Don't take it personally, but this just ain't my story.

Asura's Wrath would have been a superb anime or an excellent videogame. However, it couldn't decide what it wanted to be and instead served up tiny slivers of both, pulled together in a fashion so clumsy that you can see the stitching from miles away. It's not so much a game as it is a collection of concepts, roughly thrown into the same box and jumbled around in the vain hope that something good would come out at the end.

A solid, if unimpressive, racer that provides swift, hassle-free portable action. However, I can't recommend it as a full-priced retail product, because it absolutely doesn't feel like one. With a simplistic no-frills approach to racing, and graphics that could easily be rendered on a PSP, Injection barely feels like a step above its iOS and Android prequels, so it feels like yet another attempted swindle from Gameloft and Ubisoft.

Equal parts tremendous and terrible, with a fine line clearly separating the two distinct territories. Unfortunately, since each stage ends on a sour note, the overall emotion one gains is that of bitter disappointment. It's a game that repeatedly starts strong and ends despicably, and as much as I want to adore it, I ended every session cursing its name.

Players desperate for traditional action gaming may glean some passing repletion from what is ultimately an inoffensive waste of time. However, the monotonous action long outstays its welcome and a series of this pedigree should be bringing so much more to the table. Instead, it does just enough to be a videogame available for purchase, and not a lot more than that.

MLB 2K12 isn't a terrible game. But if you've played it before...well, you've played it before. If you haven't played it before, it's not a very good jumping-on point due to little to no in-game tutorials, and the animations won't win any new fans either.

I love RPGs and strategy games, and I really didn't enjoy it. On the other hand, it's decent enough that I can see some people enjoying it. If you like the idea of fine-tuning tactics with a small squad during repetitive combat for 40 hours, then you might find something here. If that's not your thing, you should probably just replay Dragon Age: Origins or Dawn of War II.

A title that isn't truly good or bad, with aspects that can be fun at times yet which grow boring over the course of its 4 hour lifespan, and ultimately it falls just short of being anything more than decidedly average.

Unspectacular and, to be honest, fairly boring. Coupled with one of the most despicable soundtracks I have ever had forced into my ears, Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 2 is very difficult to recommend. It's not terrible, not by a long shot, but it barely seems worth the time -- and auditory agony -- to play.

It's a competent racer that could have benefited from better race and track design to make the experience a bit more enjoyable. Bland tracks, similar variations on popular power-ups, and no real sense of accomplishment for unlocks makes for a very boring racer indeed, and the lack of development into the game's one truly fun mode is a crime.

All that matters is that there's a lot of heart in Inversion, but absolutely nothing going on the brain department. There is desire, with absolutely no thought.

At worst, Tiny Troopers is a forgettable distraction. It works as intended (most of the time), it's easy to get into, and there are some tough missions for those looking for a challenge. It isn't really bad, it's just rather boring.

Charmless, cynical, and uninspired, Warfighter encapsulates everything wrong with the annual big budget shooter industry. It's really not an awful game, it's just insipid and shallow, a title that exists solely to exist, and squeeze whatever profit remains to be had from serving the same flavorless porridge to the same unadventurous customers.

It's still a monotonous and unexciting slog through a game that plays out like a stuck record, and even the most hardcore of Borderlands fans will find little of interest, lacking as it does the series' trademark personality.

Rabbids Land isn't awful, but it's wholly unnecessary for a system that's launching with Nintendo Land, a game that trounces Ubisoft's attempts in every conceivable way.

Scribblenauts Unlimited still serves some purpose as a playground of silly ideas, and it still has a measure of charm left over from its original incarnation, but when it comes time to actually play it, this is the most boring and monotonous game in the series. Anything it does well was already done in the portable installments, and the new structure is utterly tedious.

As it stands, this is absolutely not worth getting if you played the original, and even newcomers will be disappointed by its substandard presentation. The heart of a really good game beats within its chest, but Warriors Orochi 3 Hyper is marred by too many blemishes to do it justice.

If you're interested in the IP, stick to the core Skylanders series and avoid Battlegrounds. Toys for Bob did a great job synthesizing quality figures with quality games: Vicarious Visions, not so much.

Ace of Spades attempts to be many things, while achieving none of them. It isn't as creative and wondrous as Minecraft and it isn't as strategic or entertaining as Team Fortress 2. Hell, it isn't even as good as the beta version!

I never feel like I am doing anything new. Sure, there are new animations, but the gameplay is always the same. Click on a thing, pick the thing you want to do, and watch something happen. A lot of the time the resulting actions are never that visibly different. It's great that the sims can do new stuff, but I really want EA to make me feel like I am doing something new.

While slightly anemic in content, it's titillating when it needs to be, and is at times even fun to play.

If you're really into mafia movies and other cosa nostra flavored dealings, you might get some pure novelty enjoyment out of it on a Steam sale, provided you can put up with the repetitive nature of the game.

The Empires series is generally considered the best type of Dynasty Warriors spin-off, but with Koei's latest efforts smacking of no effort at all, this particular release comes across as unnecessary and pointless, especially with Dynasty Warriors 8 already out in Japan and inevitably preparing for a Western launch in a matter of months.

I can appreciate the classic arcade spirit of Vampire Crystals, but it does little to mask the shortcomings of old-school design while adding its own set of issues. Playing it single-player is chore, but convincing a group to play with you might be even more laborious. There just isn't enough meat on these dusty old bones.

In many ways, Tekken Card Tournament is a shame, because it's actually a decent, simple little card game. If someone laid a real-life starter deck in front of me, I'd actually play it for an extended period of time, but as it stands, it's not worth slogging through the mictrotransaction and "energy" nonsense to do it.

While Riptide banks on you having loved the first, in actuality you have a lot more to gain if you've never touched it...If you played the first game, however, I'd recommend waiting for a real sequel, because Riptide fails to get away with pulling the same trick twice.

It's better than Seasons, but it's not game-changing. If anything, this just serves as a sign that the series is getting long in the tooth, and EA needs to think about releasing a complete edition to make all of this stuff more accessible to more players.

Mars: War Logs is the kind of experience one can only call serviceable. It exists, it does what it does, and it performs its job suitably. It doesn't do anything terrible, but it never once goes above a basic standard of acceptability.

For a game that is already light on multiplayer content, this really feels like a lazy, half-hearted effort to generate a quick buck from the fans of a dedicated franchise.

While I appreciate the perspective Game Dev Tycoon has given me on game development, from indie studios in debt to huge studios juggling multiple projects, it was never the game's sim elements that had me returning. It offers a pleasant walk down memory lane of past consoles and technology, but that's about it.

Army of Two has many good ideas but ultimately falls flat on its promise. It's got some fun moments of cooperativity, some clever mechanics, and an unusually badass multiplayer mode, but its horrible controls and vanilla campaign mode prevent Army of Two from being even an above-average game.

Mundane boss confrontations don’t allow you to exhibit your fighting prowess. Awkward platforming segments slow the flow of the game to a crawl. Weird clipping issues and dangerous framerate drops deter the action of the rather short (five to eight hours) span of play. I wish there was more to Afro Samurai, but there isn’t much to sink your teeth into. The game feels 75% complete.

Strong Bad Ep.5 is also the least linear of all the games in the series.

Strong Bad Ep.5 is also the least linear of all the games in the series.

It is a mediocre title at best and one which revels in that fact. A sticky, filthy little pleasure that I have had quite a bit of enjoyment playing.

Even though Noby Noby Boy's shallow antics aren't fun or interesting enough to justify the lack of actual goals or structure, there's just too much new and quirky stuff here to not be deserving of its incredibly meager $5 asking price.

As tepid as gaming gets, put forth with the bare minimum of effort in a quick and cynical attempt to grab some free cash. It's not good in the slightest, and it's not even remarkable enough to be considered bad. It's just there, doing the one thing it's supposed to do -- make a load of money for two weeks, then disappear into obscurity where it firmly belongs.

The game's variety and length come across as nothing more than smoke and mirrors, the endless, grinding busywork that contributes nothing to the overall gameplay is inexcusably plentiful and mind-numbingly repetitive, and to top it all off, the game can't even compete in the visuals department and somehow looks worse than the original.

Lacking the intuitiveness that the game demands, Lucidity is a product that feels incomplete, despite the polish on the visuals. Perhaps with a patch the system can be salvaged, but until then, it’s best to steer away.

Ultimately, this game is a very sub-par offering that has no real reason to exist. Everything that is good about Crackdown 2 is already in the original Crackdown, and many of the problems in Crackdown 2 are unique entirely to this installment. In essence, all Crackdown 2 does is take the original game and make it worse.

Sonic Colors feels like a step right back into the same crap this series has drowned in for the past decade. If I had to pick a color for this game, it would be brown, for very obvious reasons.

There are better games out there for far cheaper. Get the original Modern Combat or N.O.V.A, which cost less and provide far more entertainment with far less aggravation.

Dead Block takes a popular genre that thrives on increasingly manic gameplay meant to evoke higher and higher tension levels, and turns it into something dull. It may have had the beginnings of a genuiningly fun game at some concept stage, but the end result is a repetitive game that you'll likely get tired of before it ends.

Eufloria is a frustrating experience because of how good it could have been and it's even more frustrating because criticism of the first version hasn't been properly addressed. It has some great, fresh mechanics and they mostly work, but it just isn't satisfying or engaging in the end.

There's room for a good videogame based on A Song of Ice and Fire, but while A Game of Thrones: Genesis is the first of its name, it never becomes more than an incestuous child born from both media parents.

The ironic thing is that the most pedestrian of stories can be convincing when coupled with intelligently applied interaction -- something Dear Esther stubbornly stands against. It's as if it wants to be a part of this wonderful medium of ours without asking itself why, which is exactly why you should seek it out and learn from its failures as a game enthusiast, critic, or developer.

Escape Plan never aims to be anything more than a showcase of the PlayStation Vita's touch controls, but said controls are so insensitive and poorly implemented that the best it can hope for is to be used as an example of what not to do when designing a Vita game.

As much as Warp's presentation gives you the illusion that you are playing a charming game full of personality, a lot of the initial goodwill and attachment to the cute critter protagonist is slowly eroded by your actions and the problematic controls. In the end, all that is left at your disposal is a virtual representation of your imminent failure and repetitive demise.

F1 fans will be drawn in by the licensed racers and circuits from the 2011 Formula 1 season, the idea of using the DRS rear-wing control, and KERS boosting abilities. They may even be entranced by the depth of the career mode or the number of race options both online and off. But when it comes down to the presentation -- endless menus, muted graphics, and the races themselves -- many will lose interest in F1 2011 very quickly.

This reboot takes itself too seriously -- every texture is spit-shined and gleaming, every animation wrought with care -- without the self-awareness to sacrifice technical sophistication for ease of use. FIFA Street is enjoyable only under the best circumstances, before the engine and the sheer density of barely distinguishable, locked-out moves take over.

In a world where THPS 2X is still readily available for less than $10 on eBay, it's hard to give this HD downgrade any sort of recommendation. The original games earned our nostalgia, while this release abuses it. It's short on content, quality, and personality. This is not the Tony Hawk I remember spending middle-school summers with.

DBZ for Kinect is just what you'd expect: a half-realized game for a half-realized piece of hardware.

Clumsy, visually sub-par, and disrespectful of the player's time. While it revels in its own stupidity and hopes you'll do the same, it's one of those sad games that believes a ridiculous concept is enough to make for a worthwhile game, and in Tank! Tank! Tank!'s case, that's just not true. Indeed, there's nothing more upsetting than a game that believes, if it's wacky enough, it can get away with being crap.

Enjoying Sir Hammerlock's Big Game Hunt is about managing expectations, about knowing what you want out of Borderlands 2's constantly expanding menu -- its strong suits are the subtle twists on combat and enemy behavior, exploration, farming, and a hidden raid boss that costs almost 100 Eridium to spawn.

It takes more than graphics to make a game, and Final Fantasy XIII offers very little else other than eye candy. Ultimately, this latest addition to the Final Fantasy series is a pompous and masturbatory affair, created seemingly to promote the developer's ego first, and the player's enjoyment second.

Where it fails, however, is in trying to be superficially difficult through cheap enemies with aggravating attacks and the ability to instantly block all your moves until you level up enough to find the one attack that breaks their defenses.

Fracture feels like a concept forged many years ago, but it just doesn’t stack up with any conventional standards. If you enjoy shooters, feel free to rent. Otherwise, it’s safe to pass this one up.

The bad menus, controls, unplayable online component, and terrible campaign mode completely shroud any real accomplishments made in terms of the game's balance and feel.

The latency, disconnects, freezing, and generally poor structure cripples the game’s ability to deliver its characteristic style of play.

The first twenty minutes of playing this game, I detested every second of it.

It's very simplistic, despite the appearance of having a complex system of creature building. Apart from my issues with the combat, at no point is the game really bad, but it's never a whole lot of fun either. It is charming for about an hour's worth of play but not much else.

The game just isn’t fun. The spotty controls, rigid character movement, and frail character creation drag Smash Court into the ground.

A big mess of a strategy role-playing game, as it seems to fall short on just about every level. Fans of strategy games can easily overlook a lackluster presentation, but Zoids Assault also suffers a severe lack of appealing game play, making it hard to recommend to anyone.

Hail to the Chimp is a collection of decent ideas, all poorly executed to some degree. The satire, while welcome to the genre, has been managed in a much better capacity by other games. The mini-games are all weak, mundane, and especially repetitive.

The game we've been presented with works against itself more often than it does not.

If the control scheme was a better, we'd call Mahjong Tales: Ancient Wisdom a great time-waster for the PS3. But the lack of polish on this boring $10 PlayStation Network game makes us want to call it a waste of time instead.

Avoid it. The few glimmers of enjoyable action simply aren't worth the hassle.

It's downright frustrating, actually, as with even the slightest tweaks, Lost Planet 2 could have been another winner for Capcom, and the epic sequel fans had hoped for. As it stands, Lost Planet 2 is a shell of a potentially great game, brought down by bizarre, dated, and counterintuitive design decisions. And that's a shame.

A great credits sequence isn't enough to keep the game from getting a [40].

The total lack of strategy needed to beat the game, the fact that all levels play pretty much identically, the lack of any notable level design, the lack of bosses, and the total lack of difficulty, make Eduardo feel like an hour and a half long tutorial mode of a good run-and-gun platformer that is yet to be made.

Unfortunately, nostalgia doesn’t operate in this game’s favor: it’s too faithful to the original. The broken levels, mundane combat, meager play options, and short play time are factors that dwarf the delicious presentation and whatever fond memories you may have.

Somewhere, hidden in foreboding mountain peaks, deep under a gloomy cave, or in the back of a forgotten whorehouse, there is fun to be had in Risen. To be honest, I'll probably keep looking for it -- but I'll do so armed with a walkthrough and the knowledge that playing Risen might be a game of diminishing returns.

It can be fun, but the pacing is annoying and the difficulty will frustrate all but the devoted.

The old school charm quickly wears off and gives way to a game that simply does not want you to have fun. It's absolutely tragic, because I was just starting to really get into it before the game basically slammed the door in my face and said "f..k off." So I fu..ed off.

Eufloria is tough, but not impossible, to love. You may have to fight through (or altogether ignore) the campaign mode to get to the good stuff, and even then you may spend more time waiting and micromanaging than you'd like, but I can't possibly deny the strength of Eufloria's most basic design choices.

Surprising introductory puzzle aside, it does nothing to innovate and barely feels like its moving the plot along. Much as I enjoy this particular series, They Stole Max's Brain! -- nothing personal, Sam -- is for the dogs.

Still, it's not the worst thing on shelves right now, but its $49.99 price tag isn't doing the game any favors, either. Maybe as a deep discount title or even a digital download with some of the game's more frustrating modes stripped out (let me run over zombies for ten bucks!) Blood Drive might have been a more attractive proposition.

Still, it's not the worst thing on shelves right now, but its $49.99 price tag isn't doing the game any favors, either. Maybe as a deep discount title or even a digital download with some of the game's more frustrating modes stripped out (let me run over zombies for ten bucks!) Blood Drive might have been a more attractive proposition.

Nothing about EVE is done poorly except for the fact that it isn't fun. If you like charts, reading directions, and being blown up for no reason, give EVE Online a try.

he game is definitely built to favor more methodical, communicative teams over groups of lone wolves. However, aside from diehard fans of the genre, it's difficult to imagine someone convincing enough of his friends to buy Breach to form a cohesive team.

As much as I wanted to rave about this one, I must begrudgingly admit that those who love freedom would probably be better served hunting down a copy of the PS2 version or downloading it for PSP.

Test Drive Unlimited 2 isn't a horrible game. It's just surrounded by a bug filled world, glitchy gameplay, and a core mechanic that doesn't function.

Warriors of Troy just about delivers some simple button mashing action without too much fuss, but hack n' slash fans would do best to wait for Dynasty Warriors 7. That game sports more character in a single trailer than this does in the entire experience.

In its current state, No Time To Explain is in serious need of polish. One day, this might be a solid platformer, because the concept is fun and worth iterating upon. For now, though, the annoyances aren't worth putting up with.

Why settle for this shallow, repetitive interactive adaptation?

If you haven't played King Arthur, then you won't really enjoy this a whole lot, and if you have played it you'll just think of how much better it is than this weird expansion. I recommend that you check out the original game if you haven't played it, and if you have played it you should just wait for King Arthur 2 to come out.

Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One should have been about $15, five hours shorter, and released on the PlayStation Network. It's a game that does a disservice to the high pedigree of the Ratchet & Clank series and takes too far a departure from what made such an excellent series. It's sad to see these fantastic characters appear in a poorly structured, mediocre game, full of camera issues and silly bugs that add insult to injury.

To say that Voltron: Defender of the Universe is a disappointment is an understatement. What should be blistering action is yawn-inducing and seems more like a chore used to get to the mech sequences, which only serve to disappoint MORE by the sheer mediocrity of them. I'd rather watch the series on Netflix.

Take out the Mutators and you have one of the most generic-looking FPS games ever designed. I get nauseated looking at the uninspired player models and wimpy guns, yet the game seems aware of where it came from. Like the original 2005 Nexuiz, this is a game made by a community. It's just that it's an enclosed community of people who seem to misunderstand what made the classics so good.

For long-time fans, Mega Man X on iOS is at best tolerable and at worst insulting. It's a "remake" rife with unnecessary alterations that only serve to make it feel more dated than the original game.

Apart from its visuals and recognizable voices (when they're heard at all), there's nothing South Park about it and could have easily been any other multiplayer platform game; a pretty mediocre one at that.

Dillon's Rolling Western demonstrated a lot of promise out the gate, adding a literal "spin" to the tower defense genre, but the journey is just too long and tedious. It's the videogame equivalent of a triathlon, only with the added bonus of having to redo any one leg of the event or the entire event itself should your performance ever fall slightly below satisfactory.

Unfortunately, I spent most of my experience with the title cursing in frustration at all the bugs, or wishing I was doing something -- anything -- other than sitting in front of my PC, watching ships move with the haste of a geriatric. With enough patches it could be a perfectly serviceable RTS, if not a particularly fun one.

Adventure Time fans would do better to wait for WayForward's upcoming DS game, because that stands a chance of actually being good. This is little more than a shameless little attempt to make a quick buck at the expense of a fun little show. I know it's a show primarily for kids, but even kids can reasonably expect better than this.

A beautiful intro does not a great game make, and the full product is a disappointment to say the absolute least. Tequila clearly has a lot of talent and an ability to craft genuinely intimidating, memorable environments -- Deadlight demonstrates the wealth of inventiveness the studio possesses. Yet it feels squandered on lazy design in the second chapter and mistreatment of player trust in the third.

If The Last Story is the Wii's swan song, it is a miserable dirge, full of regret and remorse.

The story is too light to augment the game's core mechanical focus, while ideas like the follower system feel tacked-on and inconsequential to strategy. Fans of dungeon crawlers may squeeze some enjoyment from the grind, but most players will be turned off by the tedious progression and repetitive battles.

The highest praise one can afford this game is that it's playable. It's not broken, nor is it really that offensive. It's just a condensed exercise in bromidic game design, a brief waste of time squirted out of some mercenary developer's squalid hole.

If you are truly desperate for good puzzles and sumptuous art, then you could do worse than play A New Beginning, but I found it impossible to look past the many issues and really enjoy the few things it manages to do right.

At first I started to enjoy it, but soon all I found was frustration. I can't recommend this game to anyone, and I don't want to play it anymore myself because I am afraid of seeing all my efforts lost due to server issues. It's a decent game if it worked right, but the online dependency, forced multiplayer, and DRM ruin it.

Buggy, unnecessary, and outstays its welcome before the credits close...Army of Two has never been an especially bad series, it's just never been an especially good one. The Devil's Cartel is the ultimate example of this. Is it bad? Not especially. But it's a far, far cry from good.

Sloppy, glitchy controls and graphics, tedious gameplay, and spotty co-op makes for one adventure you'll wish would boldly go away. It's dumb, Jim.

The game is boring for long stretches, has an uneven level of difficulty and no worthwhile story.

While the game is utterly terrible, it has that B-Movie sentiment to it that does make you laugh at just how horribly bad it is.

Any game that makes me listen to P.O.D.’s “Boom” every damn time someone kicks off (and Refused’s “New Noise” at the beginning of every game) is going to draw my ire. For all its lifelike hits, Backbreaker simply isn’t fun to play.

Managing the flaws might not have been a chore had the story been compelling, but this is where the game commits one of the worst sins an RPG can in my eyes: it’s just average, and often it feels forced.

One of the dumbest ideas in this game is the “Shut ’Em Down” move. Basically, you fill a “special” meter by doing well (hitting shots and dunks, and doing jukes), and you can build up three different levels of Shut ’Em Down moves.

Dreary and annoying in equal parts, this is a game best left avoided.

Ultimately, Pirates Vs. Ninja Dodgeball is a waste of time.

So, is Prinny worth it? Perhaps if you're into this hard-to-be-hard sort of thing. You masochist. But for the rest of us, the game is going to be too much of a pain to really enjoy.

A miserable little game that does nothing for anybody.

Realtime Worlds is so much better than this, and it's horrible to see that years of effort have produced this substandard, outdated, thoroughly pointless game.

Hydrophobia isn't straight-up, unforgivably dreadful. It's mostly just boring, uninspired, and vapid. Were it not for the combat, one could get away with calling it an almost decent waste of time and money. The whole package, however, amounts to a tedious and frustrating exercise in futility.

There are average hack & slash games that have their faults, like Conan or Viking: Battle for Asgard, but fans of the genre can usually overlook them in favor of having fun. Garshasp, however, sadly doesn't come close to being one of those games.

A lethargic combat experience marred further by grotesque bugs, The Cursed Crusade is a game that truly does feel cursed, like no amount of hard work would put it right.

Even once I worked past the game's convoluted, tutorial-free systems and understood how to build a mech, I found myself in a constant state of despondency. I just can't get myself to care about the customization and persistent world when everything surrounding it so poorly designed and not the least bit fun. I mean, at least give me loot. Give me something!

Fable Heroes is merely boring beyond belief.

One of the worst games I've played in a long time. And it's not necessarily because of the clunky controls, vapid shooting, or myriad of other issues that are at play here. The Expendables 2 Videogame just isn't fun. It's a long and tedious slog through the mud and a thousand enemy corpses, where time is the only thing that separates you from the end credits.

The Journey wants so desperately to impress you, but it can only ever ruin your day.

There's no escaping the issue of this being a shameful followup to a genuinely great brawler. I like Koei, but I'm the first to admit it can cut corners wherever it feels able to get away with doing so -- and even for that particular studio, this is a notably substandard effort. Uglier, more boring, as stale as week-old French bread, Fist of the North Star: Ken's Rage 2 is best ignored by fans of both Dynasty Warriors and Hokotu no Ken alike.

All the potential was wasted on missions that amount to simple copy-and-paste tactics punctuated by jokes that are an acquired taste, to say the least. It's stitched together with big ideas and interesting concepts, but it never even comes close to being the sum of its parts.

All in all, Kane and Lynch is a bad game. With characters like Kane and Lynch, we should have seen more variety in the plot and gameplay -- with developers like IO Interactive, we should have seen better shooting mechanics and level design.

The camera can often become an obstacle, the moves can be difficult to pull off or memorize, the flair outside of dancing is lackluster, the time spent on loading screens is ridiculous, and the dancing itself can be at times, pretty damn derivative.

Valhalla Knights is a struggle to play, learn, and involve yourself in. I think there is an opportunity for crazy RPG players to enjoy themselves, but I also know that the game lacks so much substance that the marriage cannot last for long.

Condemned 2 is bad. It's got one or two fun mechanics, which it absolutely refuses to let the player enjoy for any significant length of time. The story sucks, the level design is even worse, and the graphics are grimy to the point of being ridiculous.

Its gameplay mechanics are abysmal in almost every conceivable way. Its story is nonsensical at best, sacreligious at worst. Its entire running time is completely disrespectful to the player's intelligence, assuming that if the character models and locations change, the player won't realize he's getting into the exact same gun battles and fistfights he engaged in at the very start of the game. Looking at The Bourne Conspiracy as a list of bullet points, it is an undoubtedly awful game...But why, then, did I have fun with it?

Destroy All Humans is, at best, a mediocre exercise in boredom and at worst, a glitchy mess of incompetent design. It's lazy, it's dull and it's hideous to look at. Clearly rushed out in time for the holidays, you will effectively be abusing a loved one if you give them this as a holiday gift.

The combat system is too watered down to be compelling and the strategic aspect too simplistic. The only real challenge derived from the game lies in balancing these two aspects, which is satisfying for brief moments.

Just another ruined idea to throw on the ever-increasing pile. Not even the fact that one of the lines includes the term, "Satan's little piss-pot," could save this.

In summary, Armored Core: For Answer is a bland game that only exhibits brief periods of satisfaction, namely blowing things up, amidst its numerous flaws. For Answer has some particularly testy controls, poor mission structure, aggravating battles, and a complete lack of flair in its levels.

This game is a flat out 3, you should really play it.

Sadly, those at the helm allowed it to be completely ruined by poor design and utterly inconceivable schoolboy errors that should not still be occurring in the year 2008.

The controls frustrate, the missions bore and the multiplayer has the potential of being quite unfair. While the basic idea is sound, the failure to implement its features in a compelling way makes LEGO Battles one you can easily skip.

RPGs are going to have to do a lot more these days than simply say "Look at how old school I am" in order to impress. This game has not done that. It's not really done anything well at all.

It isn't worth your time for the 30 seconds worth of fun that it produces.

A good Star Trek title is hard to find and it’s definitely not here. D-A-C doesn’t offer much in terms of replay value. If you rock out by yourself or even via Xbox LIVE, you’ll quickly become numb to the action. The simple victory parameters coupled with the painfully basic shooting provide an experience that you can become accustomed to in seconds, but there’s nothing there to explore. No strategy, no campaign, and no complexity.

As a Fable II fan, it pains me to say this, but "See the Future" is a gauche and ultimately boring addition to Fable II.

If this game is any indication as to the quality of the movie, then it's safe to say that this is one trip to the theater that you do not need to take.

The lazily created campaign mode, the dreadful level and upgrade design, horrendous lack of bullet feedback and latency are all factors working against it. The great visuals and matchmaking have nothing to do with the core game, which is lifeless, sluggish, and dreadful.

With some very serious polishing, tweaking, and rebalancing, I think this game could have been quite enjoyable. As it stands, it's a waste of time, far too frustrating, and absolutely not worth $49.99.

The idea has merit, but the actual end result is a boring, ugly mess that offers little.

Ultimately, Thexder Neo has no point. It's a below mediocre shooter that shouldn't have been brought back if the developers had no intention of improving it.

The game never really takes off, relying on very few tricks to support itself from beginning to end.

The game looks good and aims high, but the problem is it's just not fun. At all.

This is a disgrace and fans should let Gearbox know that it's very easy to perceive this as a lazy cash-grab.

This game does not in fact rock, but succeeds in doing quite the opposite.

This game does not in fact rock, but succeeds in doing quite the opposite.

Maybe they did bite off more than they could chew, but they at least had aspiration. None the less, Venetica's over-ambition is its own downfall. The many imperfections that would be ironed out from larger more successful RPGs have not been attended to rendering the game as frustrating, which is a pity.

Souls of Zill O'll is simply not worth your time. In fact, it's an active waste of it.

A shell of an RPG. The idea for the world is there and the idea for a unique battle system is there, but nothing is actually inside these ideas.

It's an antiquated shooter that's trying to hang with the new blood and failing at every turn. The fact that it's thoroughly broken serves only to rub salt in an already stinging wound.

From UI, to writing, to systems, this feels like an ancient game that was also, tragically, not given enough time in the oven.

This is a game that feels like it was developed in a bubble, oblivious to elements that have shaped the best RTS games of the past 15 years or to how an outsider will adjust to the game's rules.

A game with nothing to offer the world but boredom and irritation in equal measure, and isn't worth playing even for those who are desperate to flesh out their 3DS library.

I admit that I'm new to using a Xbox 360 controller, but damn if these ladies aren't as slippery and wet as a walrus' throat.

As a game, Jurassic Park is pretty bad. Both the action and puzzle sequences are uninteresting at best and obnoxious at worst.

Zack Zero feels like it was made by going down a checklist. Lava level? Check. Rudimentary puzzles? Check. Arbitrary baubles and hidden treasures to collect? Check. Boss fights at the end of levels? Check. There's no charm, save for the enemy designs and certain environments, and no sense of identity. The game alternates between being an unexciting, stale, middling affair, and being a somewhat broken game that hits some remarkably low lows. I don't know which is worse.

By far the most blatantly rushed cash-in attempt of all the PS Vita launch titles, ModNation Racers: Road Trip is to be avoided at all costs. With horrid visuals, dawdling menus, and threadbare features, this lazy piece of software insults the system it is supposed to help showcase. In fact, I'd say its existence could be directly harmful to the Vita, given how it's one of the bigger titles available at launch and makes the Vita look like it's only capable of producing garbage.

As a videogame, Zombii Attack is shit. As a parody of videogames, it has its moments. Either way, I'm not so sure it's worth $5.

Incomplete, glitchy, and visually degraded, Silent Hill HD Collection is Konami's greatest insult to the series.

This motion never works consistently, and the controller itself (which the game says you need to hold, as both movement and firing are done from it) even blocks your hands from the sensor sometimes. This basically means that in the heat of battle, you're putting your hands in front of you back and forth constantly just to see/shoot/move, and go back to view your instruments.

As much as I want to like Anna for being a horror point-and-click, with such extensive translation issues, I can't in good conscious recommend it to anyone. It has a few good scares and some startling imagery, but otherwise just can't deliver the well-crafted intrigue of its peers.

Damage Inc. is a hot mess. Choppy frame rate, ugly graphics, shoddy presentation, forgettable multiplayer, and an overall worthless feeling when playing doesn't amount to much. There's at least a good variety of things to do with the number of missions and planes involved, but you may be too frustrated with the gameplay itself to even care.