This shooter is a painful exercise in pattern memorization plus frustrating trial-and-error gameplay.

This shooter is a painful exercise in pattern memorization plus frustrating trial-and-error gameplay.

Tedious pace and annoying pixel hunts sabotage this surreal adventure.

There was potential here, but dreadful graphics and poor artificial intelligence make this a battle best avoided.

Koei's Sengoku-era-inspired Samurai Warriors franchise hits a new low with this on-rails first-person action game.

If the wait for the 2010 Winter Olympics is killing you, this ho-hum collection won't make time go by any quicker.

The game's overall lack of content makes it one of the last things you'd want to spend 40 bucks on. Even though it manages to capture the occasional burst of Sonic speed, there isn't enough content in Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity to keep you entertained for more than two or three laps.

Legend is just another uninspired action RPG.

SnapCity is a neat concept, but in practice, it's dreadfully boring.

The Phantom Fortress is full of lame minigames, occasional fights, and tons of repetition. Enter at your own risk.

Mister Slime looks about as simplistic as it plays, displaying gameplay on the bottom screen while relegating Slimy's health, points, and menu items to the top screen.

The production values and overall presentation certainly fit this cut-rate title, and you'll soon get bored if you're playing alone.

With an ancient design and old-fashioned gameplay, Command and Destroy is more like a gust of stale air than a blast from the past.

Guilty Gear 2 may be an interesting experiment in cross-genre game design, but it's mostly a shallow mess.

Deriving pleasure from this dull, monotonous RPG is a challenge that should only be undertaken by the most hardcore Code Lyoko fans.

Enough effort was put into the gameplay and graphical design to keep it from crashing and burning, but not enough to inject it with any sort of life or appeal.

Enough effort was put into the gameplay and graphical design to keep it from crashing and burning, but not enough to inject it with any sort of life or appeal.

Like a poisonous mushroom, Rise of the Fungi looks good but makes you feel bad.

Supreme Ruler 2020's steep learning curve and micromanagement will turn off all but the most fanatical strategy gamers.

The XBLA version of Wits & Wagers is cheaper than the board game but not nearly as easy to recommend.

Though Pop can be fun in short bursts, it isn't worth 700 Wii points ($7).

This mech strategy RPG is rusty and dull.

Belief & Betrayal is a paint-by-numbers adventure that amounts to little more than a lame rip-off of the Da Vinci Code.

Dark Horizon is an improvement on its Tarr Chronicles predecessor, but that isn't saying much.

Bolt's superpowers can't save anyone from a poor camera and dull gameplay.

Sonic finds shallow, frustrating gameplay awaiting him in the legendary realm of King Arthur.

Questionable design choices aside, the problem with almost every aspect of The Godfather II is simply that it feels unfinished.

Questionable design choices aside, the problem with almost every aspect of The Godfather II is simply that it feels unfinished.

Even if it were finished, this movie-inspired action game wouldn't be deserving of its prestigious license.

A cruelly hijacked story makes this otherwise serviceable game a pale shadow of adventures past.

Colorful graphics can't make up for this game's shocking brevity.

The pleasures of island life are cast away by constant frustrations in this tedious survival game.

Though Tornado's core gameplay is based on a solid foundation, its few major drawbacks are too severe to ignore.

Lame jokes and long loads are all you need to know about point-and-click adventure Everlight.

This classic turn-based strategy game feels old and slow on the Nintendo DS.

Proof that simplicity isn't always a good thing, this cutesy baseball download is so vapid you’ll lose interest well before the 7th-inning stretch.

Cute critters fail to keep this medical-themed puzzler from flatlining.

An obtuse interface makes MLB Front Office Manager bewildering even to baseball-sim veterans.

An obtuse interface makes MLB Front Office Manager bewildering even to baseball-sim veterans.

An obtuse interface makes MLB Front Office Manager bewildering even to baseball-sim veterans.

Simulation racing fans beware; this racer will test your patience more than your riding skills.

A new coat of paint can't save this busted and broken remake.

You're in the Movies is a box-office bust, despite featuring your own recognizable stars.

An awful frame rate and lackluster visuals make this version of Puzzle Adventure one to avoid.

It's hard to mess up a hidden-object game, but Interpol tries.

Memento Mori is a plodding adventure that makes the world of art forgeries and ancient mysteries seem dull.

Too many design issues leave this physics-based puzzler grounded.

Problematic controls rain on this whimsical, yet shallow, parade.

The new content in this World in Conflict expansion is short and not so sweet.

MLB 2K9 is a deeply flawed funhouse-mirror distortion of baseball.

MLB 2K9 is a deeply flawed funhouse-mirror distortion of baseball.

This bland, uninspired adventure will probably make your wrist hurt. Fortunately, it's over quickly.

A few cute moments can't disguise this movie tie-in's biggest problem: its criminally short length.

A few cute moments can't disguise this movie tie-in's biggest problem: its criminally short length.

Excruciating difficulty makes this latest addition to the Desperados family one frustrating trip back to the Wild West.

This platformer based on the Clone Wars TV series tries to copy the Lego game formula but gets just about everything wrong.

This simple superhero game is a super bore.

Terrible controls and bland visuals make this intergalactic excursion one to avoid.

Serious control issues spoil an already bland adventure.

This online first-person shooter is too shallow and buggy to entertain for long.

It doesn't matter if you're a huge fan of off-road racing, the Wii version of Dirt 2 is best avoided.

It's inelegant and underdeveloped, and it represents a major step backward when compared to the original. Halfhearted dialogue, bad AI, unimaginative level design, stripped RPG elements, and all sorts of other factors make the game feel as if it were pieced together on an assembly line and quickly tossed onto store shelves.

The ideas were there, but Darkest of Days doesn't deliver where it counts.

Both the past and the future look dreary in this bizarre and unsatisfying time-travel shooter.

You won't want to come out to play with this clunky beat-'em-up.

The high-flying Astro Boy stays firmly planted on the ground in this unimaginative adaptation of the film.

The lack of content and the simplistic presentation prevent even the most diehard Twilight fans from wanting to sink their teeth into this one.

Iron Man 2 bungles its improvements and neuters its thrills, taking all the fun out of being a high-tech superhero.

Pure Football may be an arcade take on the sport, but that doesn't excuse its repetitive gameplay and general lack of game modes.

These legendary fighters may look the part, but unresponsive controls are the first thing you'll notice.

Clash of the Titans is a predictable hack-and-slash adventure that is exactly the type of game that gives movie tie-ins a bad reputation.

Clash of the Titans is a predictable hack-and-slash adventure that is exactly the type of game that gives movie tie-ins a bad reputation.

Samurai Warriors 3 is yet another unimaginative entry in a series that became outdated years ago.

Dull platforming and button-mashing action make Blade Kitten a disappointing first game for its cute-as-a-cat heroine.

What starts out as a simple but entertaining aerial jaunt quickly becomes monotonous and shallow, making it hard to justify its price tag.

What starts out as a simple but entertaining aerial jaunt quickly becomes monotonous and shallow, making it hard to justify its price tag.

What starts out as a simple but entertaining aerial jaunt quickly becomes monotonous and shallow, making it hard to justify its price tag.

Shallow, mindless hack-and-slash action makes this a crushingly tedious slog through an anachronistic version of 16th-century Japan.

Shallow, mindless hack-and-slash action makes this a crushingly tedious slog through an anachronistic version of 16th-century Japan.

This little role-playing game is pretty--and pretty dull.

All the gore in the world can't disguise Splatterhouse's laundry list of clumsy mechanics.

All the gore in the world can't disguise Splatterhouse's laundry list of clumsy mechanics.

Only masochists need to bother with Majesty 2: Battles of Ardania, an incredibly tough expansion pack.

Lousy controls hinder almost every attempt Sonic Free Riders makes at being a fun racing game.

Imprecise controls and repetitive gameplay hampers this downloadable cooperative adventure.

Imprecise controls and repetitive gameplay hampers this downloadable cooperative adventure.

This basic brawler fails to capture the unique character or high-speed action of its televised counterpart.

Tedious quests and dull, infuriating combat make this one fantasy adventure whose monsters you won't want to hunt.

The game would perhaps be visually palatable if not for the substandard frame rate, but alas, it's a little too jerky to really be pleasing.

Sticks to the show fairly faithfully, but extremely limited options, the inability to skip the lengthy between-question animation, and horrendously slow load times suck out any potential fun you might have with this game.

The squad premise of the game serves only to throw a few meaningless options into an otherwise thin game.

The average gamer is going to have a hard time looking past the game's generally poor production and repetitive gameplay.

The frustrating controls ruin what could have otherwise been a standout conversion of one of the Dreamcast's more unique games.

You'll give up on this side scrolling racer well before its two hour finish line.

The interface and poor control are bigger enemies than the game's Iraqi soldiers ever are, and in the end, this is a game you can surely live without.

Just too light on action, production quality, and overall gameplay to make it a worthwhile purchase.

Ultimately a shallow, clunky, near-broken mess of a game.

Not only a poorly realized party game, it's also a boring one to boot.

Instead of fixing any of Psycho Circus' problems, adding some Dreamcast-only levels, or even just making the game an exact port of the original, the programmers at Tremor have actually removed some key features of the PC version.

It's hard to believe that the survival-horror genre can only be done right by Capcom (and perhaps Konami), but Hail to the King will do little to convince you otherwise.

While this all may sound like a great value, every single one of the ports is incredibly poor, resulting in nothing but disappointment for anyone looking to replay any of these classic games.

This tedious underwater adventure is as short on content as it is on thrills.

Recycled environments and mediocre gameplay overwhelm the multiplayer positives of this lackluster Ghostbusters adventure.

Samurai Warriors Chronicles does a fine job of bringing the shallowness and tedium of the series to the 3DS.

PlayStation Move Heroes pulls you in with its all-star cast, but problematic controls and repetitive gameplay kill that initial excitement.

This repetitive trudge through the land before time does no justice to the concept of dinosaur fighting game.

The mind-numbing Faery: Legends of Avalon is too shallow, easy, and tedious to inspire anything other than apathy.

The decent hack-and-slash action of Dungeons & Dragons: Daggerdale is plagued by more problems than its heroic adventurers can handle.

Hunted: The Demon's Forge buries its rock-solid ideas under a mound of execution blunders.

Dead Block fills the zombie apocalypse with rampant vandalism and ingenious booby traps, yet somehow the result is exceedingly dull.

Dead Block fills the zombie apocalypse with rampant vandalism and ingenious booby traps, yet somehow the result is exceedingly dull.

This pricey one-trick pony provides an amusing trot down memory lane, but you'll be saddle sore before you know it.

Limited licences, stripped features, and disappointing presentation make Rugby World Cup 2011 disappointing to even the most ardent fans of the sport.

Limited licences, stripped features, and disappointing presentation make Rugby World Cup 2011 disappointing to even the most ardent fans of the sport.

Pokemon Rumble Blast is an overly simplistic, repetitive action game.

Disney Universe isn't much of a Disney product--nor much of a game, either.

The War of the Worlds adapts H.G. Wells' classic novel into a visually appealing platformer that unfortunately falls short in a number of key areas.

You may play a feudal lord in Stronghold 3, but the tedious micromanagement and bugs make you feel like a peasant.

What should be a joyful revival is dragged down by low-res textures, repetitive missions, punchless attacks, and an overall lack of excitement.

There are better ways of spending your time during the cold winter months than playing Winter Stars.

A frighteningly flawed action-heavy spin-off that withers in the shadow of its superior alternatives.

A frighteningly flawed action-heavy spin-off that withers in the shadow of its superior alternatives.

Caught between being a space sim, a real-time strategy game, and a role-playing game, Starpoint Gemini tries to do a little bit of everything, and fails to do anything well.

Varied track design isn't enough to save Wheels of Destruction from a trip to the junkyard.

Aggravating combat overwhelms the elements that could have made Sorcery enjoyable.

Jet Set Radio was interesting in the year 2000, but the game needed more than a fresh coat of paint to make its awkward design worth revisiting.

Tryst's memorable title is the only thing that stands out about this otherwise forgettable and buggy real-time strategy game.

How far can cinematics get you when the gameplay sandwiched between them is so poorly paced, so utterly misconceived, so reliant on stick wriggles and button tapping? There's a place for contextual prompts and cinematic storytelling in video games, but Resident Evil 6 is a mishmash of elements put together without any sense of care or direction.

Series faithful might stumble through for the sake of story, and perhaps to appreciate those few moments that recall when Resident Evil was at its peak glory. But this long, poor sequel is the ultimate test of patience for even the most dedicated.

Fans will no doubt appreciate the exclusive episode of the Dragon Ball anime included with the game, which is nicely presented in HD. But that's hardly enough to make up for the sheer mind-numbing repetitiveness of the game.

With an uninteresting world and dull combat, the survival horror game ZombiU is a weak link in the Wii U's launch lineup.

And that's Colonial Marines' biggest problem: enemies come, and you shoot them down easily, again and again. The game is remarkably light on variety. A couple of battles masquerade as boss fights, but they require no strategy and are just as easy and thrill-less as the rest. The four- to five-hour campaign has no thrust to it; it feels the same from beginning to end, and the finale just drops with a thud. And by being so easy and predictable, the game lets down the license.

The Alien franchise deserves better than this. Aliens: Colonial Marines is a disappointing exercise in bland corridor shooting, dragged down by laughable dialogue and cooperative play that makes the game worse than when you adventure on your own. Colonial Marines is unremarkable in every conceivable way: it's far too easy, generally devoid of tension, and lacking in the variety it so desperately needed.

The troubled real-time strategy dungeon sim Impire fails to recapture the charms of its inspirations.

Rather than resolving what came before it, Awakened simply shrugs its shoulders for a couple hours before throwing another cliff-hanger ending your way. Sure, it still plays perfectly well, with plenty of intense dismemberment and a pleasingly varied selection of necromorph enemies to fend off.

Alien Spidy's cool momentum-based platforming is both unique and uniquely infuriating.

When the first wave of frustration passes, you'll realize that Conflict Zone is a subpar RTS game whose few good ideas just don't add up.

Has absolutely no significance for anyone but hard-core Bust-A-Move completists.

This traditional adventure game offers a few attractive scenes, but otherwise it's an exercise in tedium that will disappoint even avid adventure gamers.

Meant to be dark and atmospheric. It's set in a strange amusement park. And when it makes sense, it can be fairly creepy. Unfortunately, it doesn't make sense very often.

A pretty weak game. With poor control, counterintuitive level design, and drab graphics, X Games Skateboarding is best suited for skateboarding fans looking for a quick fix in the form of a rental.

Unlike the entries from Microsoft and Rockstar, though, The Italian Job is almost completely devoid of both flavor and interesting gameplay, and the whole thing feels like it was slapped together in a supreme hurry to cash in on the release of the film.

This concept itself obviously isn't a terribly original one, and Shattered Universe's gameplay mechanics are equally pedestrian in design, hopelessly trying to mirror bigger, better space combat games.

Over the years, the series has shown its flashes of playability, but Sarge's War isn't one of them. This game never shows anything above the most minimal of efforts, and even then, it seems as though you're being entertained as if by accident.

So little has been done to jazz up the game's presentation that only those who long to hear more abuse spew from Anne Robinson's curled lips will find enough here to justify spending 20 bucks.

Easy to learn, easy to play, and easy to afford, Ford Mustang: The Legend Lives is a barely tolerable, exceedingly temporary fix for the financially restricted racing beginner.

Hard Truck: Apocalypse takes an interesting premise and strips away all but the most mundane elements, leaving you to drive down a long and unexciting road to nowhere.

Mage Knight Apocalypse is a sloppy attempt to adapt the collectible tabletop miniatures game to a dungeon-crawler format.

This version of the game takes what should have been a wide-open, tactical experience in a massive metropolis and turns it into just another run-and-gun shooter that ramrods you through narrow corridors.

The action here is a complete mess that can't be salvaged, even with copious amounts of fan service and esoteric references to the Gundam universe.

Regardless of the validity of the license, D.I.C.E. the game is a dull, repetitive, and often frustrating experience that should be avoided.

World Racing 2 makes a couple of key improvements on its predecessor, but it's still a substandard effort.

Brutal difficulty is the only thing that sets this WWII real-time strategy game apart from its predecessors.

Sonic the Hedgehog may share its name with the Genesis original, but this game is even more broken than most of the other recent Sonic games have been.

Eragon relies entirely on tedious, unenthusiastic gameplay that's way too shallow to sustain interest for more than a few minutes.

Eragon relies entirely on tedious, unenthusiastic gameplay that's way too shallow to sustain interest for more than a few minutes.

Its graphics are at the bottom of the Game Boy Advance totem pole, none of the hardware's interesting features like multiplayer are utilized, and the one-player mode can be finished in one day.

Beneath the sharp sprite-based graphics and Manga-style cutaways, which admittedly do look very nice, this is just a poorly designed fighting game that even the show's youngest fans are likely to laugh at.

The combat is overly simplistic, the cel-shaded presentation is unattractive and unrefined, and the game is brimming with collision-detection and physics bugs.

Unlike the entries from Microsoft and Rockstar, though, The Italian Job is almost completely devoid of both flavor and interesting gameplay, and the whole thing feels like it was slapped together in a supreme hurry to cash in on the release of the film.

This concept itself obviously isn't a terribly original one, and Shattered Universe's gameplay mechanics are equally pedestrian in design, hopelessly trying to mirror bigger, better space combat games.

Easy to learn, easy to play, and easy to afford, Ford Mustang: The Legend Lives is a barely tolerable, exceedingly temporary fix for the financially restricted racing beginner.

Eragon relies entirely on tedious, unenthusiastic gameplay that's way too shallow to sustain interest for more than a few minutes.

After the thrill of flying around Metropolis wears off, Superman Returns is nothing more than a below-average, repetitive movie tie-in that doesn't even do the movie tie-in part well.

Almost completely devoid of both flavor and interesting gameplay, and the whole thing feels like it was slapped together in a supreme hurry to cash in on the release of the film.

Its average gameplay and uninteresting levels create a game that doesn't warrant attention.

Succeeds on some levels and fails on others, but on the whole, it does a good job of being a party game.

Looks solid visually, but the game has lost some of its gameplay speed in the transition to Sony's 128-bit console.

There is a good deal of potential here, but Top Gear Dare Devil's deeply flawed physics engine, lack of gameplay variations, and frame rate issues keep it in the shadow of "Crazy Taxi" and make it a game that you should avoid.

Whiteout's technical and creative deficiencies keep it from being recommendable to anyone.

This cheap PlayStation 2 port carries none of the punch that can be found in the tabletop game due to a positively antediluvian design that sees you running down an endless succession of corridors hunting for keys.

Every aspect of the game, from the combat mechanics to the movement to the technical execution of the graphics, is lacking in some regard, and when you add these elements together, you get a game that's simply unpleasant to play.

A host of problems can be found in almost all facets of the game, so there simply aren't any good reasons to buy it, especially with better alternatives already available.

This exotic pedigree gives Torrente the game an air of intrigue that eclipses the final product, which turns out to be a typically rotten movie-licensed budget shooter.

Island Hopping is beset with problems that leave this tycoon game out to sea... The developers would be wise to give players more power and control, as well as more options.

At best, D-Day offers up a tepid serving of cookie-cutter RTS gameplay. At worst, it makes you descend into micromanagement hell.

This may please whatever contingency there is of fans who still keep up with Bandai's answer to Pokémon, but for everyone else this is just a slapdash action RPG that seems more intent on punishing players with clumsy, tedious gameplay than actually engaging, or maybe even entertaining, them.

Dance Factory's main feature is the ability to generate dance steps to your own music CDs. There's just one problem: It doesn't really work.

Say good-bye to the historical authenticity of Strongholds past and hello to one generic, seriously flawed fantasy RTS.

The DS version of X-Men misuses its characters, controls poorly, and is otherwise utterly generic.

The racing is boring and way too easy, the physics are bouncy and unrealistic, the rubber-band artificial intelligence is ridiculous, and you can easily beat every race in the game in a couple hours.

Ghost Rider steals liberally from several major action games, yet somehow avoids stealing the parts that made those games fun.

Although it lets you wander around a game board and participate in various multiplayer challenges as your favorite Crash Bandicoot characters, the game ultimately crashes and burns because the majority of its minigames are lifeless and uninteresting.

You'd be better off staying away from this botched attempt to translate the great ninja stealth action series to the DS. Almost nothing good about Tenchu made the cut.

This 3D adventure game does expand on the movie's story, but it's also uninteresting and repetitive.

This 3D adventure game does expand on the movie's story, but it's also uninteresting and repetitive.

Drift racing is supposed to be fast-paced and exciting and it's neither of those things in D1 Grand Prix, a lifeless and frustrating PS2 racing game.

Flushed Away is a generic run-and-jump game that's hampered by technical problems.

An absolute mess, crippled by a terrible control scheme and frustrating missions that wear on seemingly forever. And even with six editions of the series supplying the narrative, it's a waste of a great license, offering very little to anyone looking for a franchise fix.

Thanks to poor controls, a paltry list of game modes, and a lack of real-life players not named Rafael Nadal, Rafa Nadal Tennis double-faults in its Nintendo DS debut.

While it can be fun at times, there are so many annoying gameplay issues that the overlying feeling of hindrance is difficult to shirk.

The other serious problem with Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure is a holdover from the original: its horrible boss fights.

Doesn't possess anywhere near the level of polish or charm of its Genesis namesake.

A fair adventure in button pressing, but that's as far as it goes.

On the Game Boy Advance, Disney's Meet the Robinsons is a straightforward action game that's clearly aimed at younger players.

It may well offer you the chance to take your favourite team through the qualifying stages and into the World Cup finals, but the game's poor animation and simple tactics make it a completely lackluster experience.

Falls flat in just about every way a Corvette or racing fan enthusiast could hope it would succeed...it's difficult to recommend it to even the most devout Corvette enthusiasts.

Fans of the original Spy vs. Spy games won't find anything worth playing in this Xbox update. But even if you don't know what the series is about, you aren't really missing anything.

A dull and largely forgettable experience, which, considering the quality of the previous three Digimon World games, really shouldn't be too big of a surprise to anyone.

Even if you forgive the flimsy story, cliché characters, and derivative gameplay, it's impossible to look past the myriad game-stopping bugs, frustrating glitches, and glaring technical problems that plague this game.

An incredibly slapdash and barren game that has absolutely nothing to offer you beyond monotonous, almost-broken fighting mechanics, tiny environments, and a bunch of lame unlockables.

The racing is boring and way too easy, the physics are bouncy and unrealistic, the rubber-band artificial intelligence is ridiculous, and you can easily beat every race in the game in a couple hours.

It's buggy, the gameplay modes are shallow, and the graphics don't save it.

A dull and largely forgettable experience, which, considering the quality of the previous three Digimon World games, really shouldn't be too big of a surprise to anyone.

This is an incredibly slapdash and barren game that has absolutely nothing to offer you beyond monotonous, almost-broken fighting mechanics, tiny environments, and a bunch of lame unlockables.

Flushed Away is a generic run-and-jump game that's hampered by technical problems.

This 3D adventure game does expand on the movie's story, but it's also uninteresting and repetitive.