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.

There are many games that will only appeal to "fans of the genre," but this goes farther than that and becomes a game that appeals to "fans of the series." It's not really a terrible thing, but it's not a great thing, either.

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.