YuGiOh: Dungeon Dice Monsters is played with dice, and, as such, it combines all the thrill of dice with all the tedium of patience. In order to do anything, you need to roll the dice. Need to summon a monster? Roll the dice. Want to kill something? Roll the dice. Want to make sweet, sweet loving to your supermistress? Those better be dice in your hand. In fact, the dice are so damned important that you can actually lose games if you don't roll what you need, which is often.

So, think of YuGiOh: Dungeon Dice Monsters as a game of Craps except that you don't win money but lose your self-respect. As stated, in order to perform any action whatsoever, you need to roll specific symbols, which read like a failed Lucky Charms design-room concept. These symbols are a Numbered Star (for summoning monsters), an Arrow (for pointing toward leasing condominiums), a Sword (for removing from stones), a Shield (for having sex with "ladies of the night"), a Bell (for being the town crier), and a Pentagram (for summoning demons - which you can kill using our handy guide!).

We've discussed the dice so now what's left to discuss? If you guessed "the monsters," then, congratulations! you get a potentially toxic cookie from the semi-poisoned cookie jar. The monsters are drawn so accurately that a monster named "dragon" looks more like "guy with sword," and "guy with sword" looks more like "female genitalia." The battle animations are no better. You're treated to one badly animated whatever striking at the screen and another badly animated whatever being hit with a torrent of grass clippings and writhing in agony. After watching one you'll be jamming the Start button to turn them off. And they remain off - until a monster that has never entered battle enters battle.

Furthermore, to implant the concept of a caste system into young, impressionable children's minds (our idea actually), monsters are graded levels 1 through 4. As you expect, level 1 monsters are weak but easy to summon (4 stars on die), and level 3 monsters typically give you monster dependant Lucky Charms pieces instead of being summoned (2 stars on die). You'll never see a level 4 monster. They're too busy being haughty.

To save you the trauma of a detailed description, a typical match proceeds like this:

1. Watch Computer go first, again.

2. Wait for Computer to do something stupid or get a distinct "advantage."

3. Select dice to roll.

4. Roll dice!

5. Bitch about how you couldn't summon a monster, again.

6. Watch Computer roll dice, summon an improbable monster.

7. Roll dice.

8. Watch two dice roll two number 1's!

9. Summon monster!

10. Scroll through placement pattern.

11. Miss your desired placement.

12. Repeat steps 10 and 11.

13. Place the pattern on the field. Maybe attack something!

14. Repeat steps 2 through 13.

15. Realize that you can't take it anymore.

16. Weep, weep your sorrow!

17. Take an anti-depressant. Or, several...

18. Go manic.

19. Build an impromptu suit of armor in your reckless, euphoric state.

20. Rob a bank.

The objective to this game is to have your monster attack your enemy's guy in a party hat and deplete its Hearts before your enemy does the same to you. Once you realize that, you can win the tournaments in Tournament Mode for prize money. All your favorite characters participate but you'll be playing ruffians more than anyone you'd know. There's a school bully, the owner of a shoe store, and an assassin. Frankly, we would think the assassin would just execute his way to the championship but, sadly, he sulks his way home after losing at dice to a pseudo-stripper.

After the tournament, you'll discover that the purses don't provide nearly enough money to buy any reputable dice in Yugi's Grandpa's Dice Shop, and that you will never, ever, complete your dice collection. If you're bored enough you can try playing the game in Spanish, an option presented even before the title screen.

You can thank your good buddies at Konami for this game. That's right, Konami. The makers of Contra, Gradius and Solid Snake created this game and they couldn't even be bothered to complete it. There are numerous times when a portion of a status box remains on screen. It taunts you with the knowledge that something so simple wasn't corrected.

Final Notes:

1. Salesmanship - 2: Yugi's Grandpa is gruff, curt and doesn't provide an inviting customer service experience. His query, "Yes? What would you like?" explains the falling stock prices and low customer traffic - that or he's in the back masturbating with the dice.

2. Difficulty - 8: The computer falls like the Maginot Line - to a blitzkrieg! Just rush your opponent and bitchslap its Hearts away. The real difficulty comes from not destroying random property while waiting for the "correct" dice to roll.

3. Application Validation - 10: After finding this game, we've incorporated it into our application process for new henchmen. Our proctors then can accurately determine the henchtype for each new recruit as well as any latent powers/heart conditions not listed on the application form.

4. Konami Code - 0: Konami was so ashamed of this game that they didn't even put in their famous code!