As laughable as the context for the story might seem, the apocalyptic vision of a destroyed city by the bay feels very real, and surprisingly, as a space for races, works very well.

If you're looking at the game for continuing the fun, campy Mortal Kombat legacy, you'll find a lot to like here. If you're looking for highly technical fighting matches or evolved modern game storytelling, you'll do better looking elsewhere.

Well, yeah. I think it's pretty darn fun.

Few developers have been able to master the horror aspects of games as well as Surreal has done in the two Suffering games thus far, and with a bit more balancing, this could have been a great current generation sendoff for players looking to move on to the next-generation terror of "F.E.A.R." and "Condemned."

Star Ocean contains an interesting plot buried in its depths, but it's incredibly demanding of your time and your patience.

If you have friends to play with and any measure of nostalgia for the arcade original, there's no doubt that you'll get every penny's worth from NBA Jam. If you have plans to play it alone or against random strangers, there are better options out there -- and it doesn't even take calculus to figure that out.

The game design is often thoughtless and shortsighted. Rockstar treats Liberty City as a backdrop...when it should have been the stage itself.

A true classic. The Souvalou moves at a somewhat glacial pace and the graphics are hopelessly flat, but besides those shortcomings it's still a phenomenal action game.

While Contra 4 doesn't necessarily improve on the respected series template, it's unquestionably a return to form, likely to sate rabid fans while simultaneously terrorizing unprepared newbies.

By the time I finished with Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, my left thumb felt like it was about to fall off. In fact, while playing through it, I frequently had to take breaks during long encounters to rest my aching D-pad hand. But through it all, I persisted.

It just doesn't feel that different the previous installments. But since those previous installments were good games, that's not necessarily a bad thing. But publishers should stop holding content back from their next-gen sports games, especially when more full-featured versions are available at a cheaper price.

With only four modes, no unlockable incentives to encourage multiple deployments (besides trophies), and a cartoony art style, Crash doesn't sound exciting on paper. But when you zip around, wasp-like, through the levels -- perching on platforms while grabbing out-of-reach body armor and taking potshots at the opposition -- the Contra-meets-TF2 gameplay gels perfectly, keeping you from setting the controller down. And really, that's all an online shooter needs to do.

Still, if you want to play through a good story on the easy or normal difficulty settings, there's a lot to like here.

Despite the badly botched opening segments and frustrating menu and navigational issues, it really won me over with its rewarding combat, kooky charm, and goofy humor.

This is a bargain-priced re-release of an older title. Did you always want to play the original, but forgot where you put the disc? Grab this puppy off Steam or XBox Live and have yourself a grand ol' time. But if you are into realism, refinement, cohesive plot structure, and/or crates, go blow your hard-earned cash on some pansy, frou frou FPS and quit wasting my time.

While the flying levels are frustrating and the change-characters-to-hit-this-switch mechanic gets old, the great humor and extras make Lego Star Wars worth playing if you haven't tried it yet.

Superstar Baseball was obviously meant to be played in short bursts instead of long sessions. (The lack of any sort of regular season mode ensures this.) And as this simple type of game that's neither too deep nor too shallow, Superstar's "swing at anything, steal all the time, watch out for the Thwomps in right field" brand of baseball is tough to beat.

An upgraded version of a 16-bit masterpiece -- but it's needlessly redundant for anyone who picked up "FFIV Advance."

Consider Spectrobes a fun opportunity to bond with your kids by saving the galaxy from the latest alien menace, and enjoy these times while you still can. In just a couple years, they'll probably be asking you to buy them the equivalent of Modern Warfare 2.

It's a shame that the <I>really</I> original firearms (including a cannon that shoots evil spiderlings) don't get introduced until the game's almost over, leaving you little time to enjoy them.

Those who "get" Monster Hunter will find hundreds of hours of entertainment both online and off. But whatever the case, Capcom should be commended for taking such an original, offbeat and ultimately rewarding approach to the genre.

There's a bit more quest variety, but that's really about it in terms of changes. So, if you're itching to get your hands on more DeathSpank, Thongs of Virtue is more of the same, in the best way possible. It's just as well written and silly as its predecessor with just as much charm.

Not letting people in the same room communicate with each other while facing imminent death is neither scary nor internally consistent -- the scare would have come in if there had been some kind of communication system (either voice or keyboard) when it made sense to do so, and leave the player isolated when it didn't.

An interesting, entertaining adventure in its own right. Atlus' latest probably won't be to everyone's tastes, but anyone looking for a lengthy, engrossing and above all unique handheld quest this summer would be remiss in passing it up.

Ultimately Cook Off's combination of improved variety, a better interface and multiplayer gameplay were an easy decision over the DS's stylus controls, solo-only play and limited palette -- and palate.

It refines previous ideas but lacks that big "wow" factor we've seen in the past. It's thoroughly, thoroughly competent and shouldn't be overlooked, but it really is "Need for Speed Again."

There's a bit more quest variety, but that's really about it in terms of changes. So, if you're itching to get your hands on more DeathSpank, Thongs of Virtue is more of the same, in the best way possible. It's just as well written and silly as its predecessor with just as much charm.

This package boasts an impressive amount of features for a downloadable title, and provides a slew of nostalgic fun when paired with an eager partner. Blitz is a worthy throwback to the simpler days when you could tackle a man-sized hot dog with reckless abandon.

This package boasts an impressive amount of features for a downloadable title, and provides a slew of nostalgic fun when paired with an eager partner. Blitz is a worthy throwback to the simpler days when you could tackle a man-sized hot dog with reckless abandon.

It's not the best of its breed, and may well bore the average player before reaching the halfway point. But if anything, it's one of the most unique-looking games this year; if you're in need of some high-def fantasy, it won't be your worst choice.

Saint's 2's main deficiency, however, isn't the graphics, gameplay, or anything technical -- it just doesn't hold a candle to GTA's signature style. Not one character in the entire cast stands out as anything other than generic. The city, too, is an uninspired, washed-out metropolis.

If the design were just a little tighter, and the presentation just a little crisper, I am convinced that this game would be one of my all-time favorites. As it is, I still find Valkyrie Profile's gameplay and branching storyline fascinating, and I will absolutely be adding it to my personal collection.

Sonic Advance 3 finally comes up with a way of introducing teamwork and variance between characters that doesn't overwhelm Sonic's bread-and-butter gameplay.

A must purchase for a child interested in but forbidden to play GTA 3, Hit and Run also appeals to the avid or casual viewer of the show who might be looking for something entertaining that retains actual gameplay.

The game's greatest fault, really, is that it's over too soon. Missed opportunities and some perspective oddities aside, Kororinpa: Marble Mania is a solid, charming puzzler.

Live 09's made significant strides, particularly in terms of innovation, but like the Houston Rockets exiting in the first round of the NBA Playoffs, it's the same old story here. NBA 2K9 continues to be the dominant basketball title, hands down.

While MC:LA won't necessarily wow you beyond its technical achievements -- it sticks too close to the feel and formula of preview MC games -- it still offers plenty of thrilling (and sometimes frustrating) driving.

One of this year's biggest new features is the inclusion of online play. Though this sounds like a great addition, the actual implementation is far from stellar.

While 2K6 is an excellent game, it's not much different from 2K5, and EA's NHL series is rapidly gaining ground.

Ultimately, as good a game as Kane's Wrath is, it's just better on PC -- you just won't get the complete experience with the 360 version.

Coming at the game as a hardcore NASCAR fan, I'm disappointed in a few things. The biggest issue is the lack of a few official NASCAR tracks.

It skews a bit young with its cartoonish characters, but the storyline is surprisingly dark, and the experience is more challenging than you might think. It's a perfect game to play through with your kid or younger sibling, and it's meaty enough for full-grown platforming fans to enjoy on their own.

While the game's a lot of fun, it's easy to get burned out. If this were in an arcade, you would walk away broke after the first few levels, when the game is at its hardest. At home, however, you have infinite continues and might be tempted to try to grind your way through the game. Seriously -- don't.

With bonus songs from Perry's solo efforts and a fully animated Steven Tyler swallowing the microphone, the game's target audience is very clear -- and for them, the game's existence is justified.

So, sure--Beijing may not be gold-quality throughout, but it's the best Olympics game we've had since, well...probably ever.

The big problem is durability. With a fun but shallow physics model, a dearth of tracks, no vehicular upgradeability/downgradeability, and so few options, Revo simply isn't set up for a long run. But it's a hell of a good arcade ride in the meantime.

The paper-thin storyline (you're shipwrecked on a remote island and decide to put down roots there) may be an inconsequential excuse for you to repeat the same core game of the past 11 years, but some small lessons learned along the way manage to shine through.

As someone who was only a light Trauma Center player, I was happy to play a follow-up that actually kept me playing all the way to the end without hating myself.

Osmos' visuals are subtly stunning.

While the factions aspect could have been fleshed out a bit more, the title still stands as a solid update to the game and a worthwhile purchase for strategy fans.

As a mashup of :Need for Speed: Carbon" and "Need for Speed: Most Wanted", Undercover is ultimately fairly successful. For many, though, in a post-"Burnout: Paradise" world, the question has to be raised: "What does this give me that Paradise doesn't?" The answer to that is "cops and robbers," a mechanic that has worked well in single-player since the days of Hot Pursuit, and works even better online when played in teams of 4-on-4 in Undercover.

Even though I think they ultimately contributed to the Army of Two's inconsistent tone, which moves from "flippant" to "serious business about how messed up people can get," the morality moments are what I'll remember most about The 40th Day. Not the solid cooperative play, nor the snazzy graphics where buildings fall apart, nor even the little flaws that still annoy me at times; but whether or not I chose to look the other way when that one guy closes the door in that one place.

While the flying levels are frustrating and the change-characters-to-hit-this-switch mechanic gets old, the great humor and extras make Lego Star Wars worth playing if you haven't tried it yet.

Seeing as how Tiger is one of the launch titles for the PSP, the game's atrocious load times are understandable, but entirely inexcusable.

Quest for Booty's a fine addition to the Ratchet & Clank world, but what should've been a love letter to fans ends up serving better as a taste of what outsiders are missing -- and, as a fan, that makes me just a little bit sad.

Deadly Premonition is by no means a great game, at least in the traditional sense, but I'll be damned if I didn't enjoy every minute of my nearly 42 hours playing it. The setting and story might have a little too much in common with the early 1990s television series Twin Peaks, but the homage is done with love and admiration.

An entertaining multiplayer romp.

So it's not for multiplayer fans or story fans or innovation fans, but Dark Sector is certainly a good game. When it all comes together and you're ducking in and out of cover while shooting and throwing the Glaive at groups of enemies, it's a lot of fun, and the visual spark and A.I./pacing/combat polish make it worth playing.

I can see myself buying it again for XBLA, just because I enjoy the core game so much. At any rate, it's $5 cheaper than the retail handheld versions, so you're getting an extra affordable edition of a universally-praised shooter.

We rarely see scenarios and story structure this good in a game, and that makes it easier to forgive some of the more hardcore technical game-design issues. It's definitely more of a popcorn game for the action-movie crowd than a hardcore shooter, but there's nothing wrong with that.

If you're in the dark about Roguelikes but still want a taste of one, it's better to start with the more accessible Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Its difficulty is more gradual, it's got touch-screen controls, and it features more than one party member, which is easier to deal with than Izuna's solitary dungeon-crawling. But those who already love the genre -- or want to "graduate" from Pokémon -- will still find great enjoyment from Izuna.

If you're looking for some stealth gameplay in a sandbox environment, this is a great beginner's course into the world of Agent 47. If, however, you're expecting something as revolutionary as the multiplayer in "Pandora Tomorrow," or the high polish of "Snake Eater," this isn't for you.

If you did frequent arcades in the early '90s and remember just how fun X-men Arcade was, though, this is a must-purchase.

If anything, DiRT 2 plays it a little too safe, offering only minor improvements over GRiD.

The "Medal of Honor in the air" description is fairly apt, actually -- although most of your missions (all 30 or so of them) are the standard dogfights and bombing runs, the package it's all presented in makes it feel much more fulfilling than Luftwaffe and the other old flight sims.

The online play -- particularly co-op -- gives HAWX significant replayability. Everything from the picture-perfect planes to the stunning real world environments looks great, even after multiple passes.

If you did frequent arcades in the early '90s and remember just how fun X-men Arcade was, though, this is a must-purchase.

This game's stunning details should keep you engaged all summer long. But the lack of overall gameplay innovation keeps this from making the All-Star team.

A mostly successful experiment. While the plodding pace of its first half is off-putting, the second half and the challenge levels become so gripping that I find myself stopping to play for a little bit in the midst of writing this review -- and when I'm finished, I'm heading right back to it.

As rewarding as Choplifter HD can be, it demanded a few too many hours of trial and error for me to enjoy the game past the introductory levels, but the more masochistic amongst you will undoubtedly find something to love.

As rewarding as Choplifter HD can be, it demanded a few too many hours of trial and error for me to enjoy the game past the introductory levels, but the more masochistic amongst you will undoubtedly find something to love.

The main adventure still has serious pacing problems, combat's still too easy for the most part, and load times -- though reduced -- continue to get in the way of the action.

At its best, Darksiders plays like an interactive compilation of this console generation's most interesting game mechanics. At its worst, it's like sitting through a mediocre cover band as they fumble their way through your favorite tunes.

With a little more polish, Dokuro's take on puzzle platforming could be fantastic, but a few problems hold it back from true greatness. From its cheap (though stylish) Flash game appearance, it's clear that GungHo didn't give this project the highest of budgets, which leaves some of the more precise levels feeling incredibly rickety and awkward, with escapes coming thanks to luck rather than strategy. And, at times, the developers bite off a little more than they can chew; Dokuro's floaty jumps and touchy controls aren't exactly made for boss battles or Canabalt-style death runs, but well, there they are. If you're able to overlook these minor problems, though, Dokuro makes for a fine addition to your Vita library -- which, judging by the state of the system, is probably in dire need of something new. It's not a system-seller by any means, but small, digestible, and charming experiences like Dokuro are exactly what Sony's ailing portable needs to survive.

Symphonia isn't any great shakes as a narrative, and its graphics may inspire more hate than love, but it's fun to play, and that's the important part.

A sequel worthy of the other Hawk games I spent countless hours playing.

It's a mostly well-built title with seemingly good intentions, but it lacks the weight -- whether it's in the narrative, campaign length, or feature set -- to seem like much more than a quality diversion.

Kinect Sports works well enough as a launch title and has more than enough heft to ensure that it's not labeled as just a tech demo. Yes, there are some kinks that need to be addressed, particularly with the hardware, but if you're looking to pad out the library for your shiny new peripheral, Kinect Sports should be a definite consideration.

With a thumping sound and sudden cloud of dust, grenades erase whole sections of houses. Bullets, however, stop dead in the thinnest wood slat. But what Bad Company needs isn't a trip to a real-life firing range -- it's its inflexible A.I. that requires the lessons.

Fret Nice reminds me of LocoRoco in the way its stages aren't terribly difficult to plow through, but finding all of the enemy locations, music notes, and little extras will take a lot of time. Still, I wouldn't advise picking up Fret Nice unless you're okay with abandoning its peripheral-centric gimmick to get down to the game underneath.

It's a mostly well-built title with seemingly good intentions, but it lacks the weight -- whether it's in the narrative, campaign length, or feature set -- to seem like much more than a quality diversion.

Is El Shaddai unconventional just for the sake of being different, or were the developers going for something bigger? Is being such an abstract game (on multiple levels) the overall point? Ultimately, I don't know the answer to these questions, but I'd definitely call El Shaddai an unconventional game and an entertaining adventure despite some of the creative gaps.

Whether it's playing through a level that's obviously a rip-off of Gauntlet, the inclusion of a double jump, pits that cause instant death, or enemies who resemble some of the most memorable characters in gaming, The Simpsons Game takes 2D platforming, points out its clichés, and then uses them anyways.

It's a mostly well-built title with seemingly good intentions, but it lacks the weight -- whether it's in the narrative, campaign length, or feature set -- to seem like much more than a quality diversion.

Is El Shaddai unconventional just for the sake of being different, or were the developers going for something bigger? Is being such an abstract game (on multiple levels) the overall point? Ultimately, I don't know the answer to these questions, but I'd definitely call El Shaddai an unconventional game and an entertaining adventure despite some of the creative gaps.

A notch better on the PC than Xbox, thanks to significantly better visuals, but that's still not enough to push these valorous men past the paces of the best military games of this season.

The Xbox incarnation appears more faithful to the animation, while GameCube and Playstation2 versions look slightly less crisp.

One warning to potential consumers, though: The bizarrely long cut-scenes (and the baby-game story they painfully tell) will bore any gamer old enough to read them. Avert your gaze.

Behind the premise, though, the game hides a surprising layer of complexity and strategy. The tile-based settings invoke the spirit of tabletop gaming, which carries through excellently to its tactics-focused play.

If you absolutely need to play Modern Warfare when you're on the go, well here it is, and it's pretty good. But really... how often will you want to?

I know this all sounds negative, but I also know FIFA could be much more than it already is -- and as a soccer fan, I want the series to take the same leap I saw Madden take. Still, FIFA's always a recommendable experience.

Taken for what it is, though -- a cheap collection of tons of Genesis games -- the Ultimate Genesis Collection satisfies. No compilation is ever perfect, and Sega and Backbone definitely leave room for improvement. But there's a lot of great gameplay to be had here, and plenty of interesting obscurities for the adventurous to explore -- and all for an enticing price.

It refines previous ideas but lacks that big "wow" factor we've seen in the past. It's thoroughly, thoroughly competent and shouldn't be overlooked, but it really is "Need for Speed Again."

Here, at last, the developer proves they can do things differently or they can do things conventionally, and they can do both of them very well.

Ultimately, Resident Evil 5 shouldn't be looked at as a failure in the series, merely too ambitious, inconsistent and uneven. Earlier entries in the series benefited from their simplicity and focus, and while it's laudable for RE5 to try and include so much variety, perhaps a little more of the same ol' same ol' would have resulted in a slightly better game.

I know this all sounds negative, but I also know FIFA could be much more than it already is -- and as a soccer fan, I want the series to take the same leap I saw Madden take. Still, FIFA's always a recommendable experience.

The control hiccups may cause problems, but most of them can be countered with care. But the biggest bonus: Not once will you see starlight dancing off the ball.

From the custom voice work done by show creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, to original artwork for the over-the-top-but-barely-there story, there's a treasure trove of unlockable artwork and hilarious video clips of the show.