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.

Vandal Hearts may be competent at what it does, but its derivative throwback nature doesn't do much for a genre that's in desperate need of innovation.

The Azoth of Destiny doesn't make any horrible mistakes, but the game's only real draw is that it's a very competent, old-school RPG for the PS2.

Justice League Heroes' kryptonite is its laughably lame story. Wait a second, wasn't this game written by an actual comic writer? That's why it's sad that the story is frickin' terrible.

The final problem for me is that Nightshade doesn't provide nearly enough of an incentive to rise to the challenge.

Wii Degree is, at the very least, a decent, briefly satisfying experience for gamers starved for new stuff to play on their Wiis. It just won't keep them happy for long.

After a workout with the game, I always walk away feeling like I just went through the same intensive, full-body workout that I'd only get from hitting the gym five days a week. It's this feeling that sets EA Sports Active 2 apart from the rest of the exercise games on the market, and it's why, if you're serious about getting into shape (and you can deal with the hefty price tag), you should definitely try EA Sports Active 2.

There's plenty of good, plenty of bad and plenty of weird on Taito Legends. The games are reproduced well, too, if not precisely up to arcade perfection.

If you don't own an Xbox 360 and you're bored to death with Wii Sports' Tennis, then Table Tennis is worth a look, but the lack of any personality or features -- most notably the missing online support of its predecessor -- just doesn't give it enough gameplay to last much longer than a one-week rental.

While the colorful visuals are even sharper on Wii, the included minigames are some of the laziest I've seen.

Despite the limited enjoyment found in figuring out how to kill the game's enemies, none of the tired, tentacle-porn clichés conjured here are of that much interest.

The story's dry as a bone, but that's not what you're playing Mega Man for anyway. The only truly glaring flaw: there are some lame 3D shooter sections, and while they aren't as frustrating (or prolific) as those in X7, surmounting them will still test your patience more than your ability with a joypad.

Fortune Street excels as a social experience: The sort of things that fosters knock-down, drag-out competition over the course of long, grueling hours. Just the thing for the holidays, really.

I enjoyed Blood Rayne in spite of my own frustrations. In part because of its novelty, 2D games that look this good are too few and far between, and those in HD are even scarcer. However, the game goes beyond its novelty and offers a fun yet challenging set of levels.

People who like deliberately campy, cheesy premises (like a Tarantino film) might find some subversive pleasure in this unique-yet-half-baked effort, but those looking for a little more depth would do well to pass this one by.

An unexpected visual delight (especially for HDTV owners) -- and it makes an already strong multigenre affair even better.

The game looks like a "Viewtiful Joe" mod with midlevel animated comic-book panels, complimented by decent voice acting to help progress the story. Still, it feels like a hollow adventure.

The problem is that every positive quality is hopelessly undermined by a single flaw: the game just doesn't work.

It's all a bit dull, gameplay-wise, until you can trudge through at least one season of shutouts. The good news is that presentation-wise, Quidditch World Cup sparkles.

It's not exactly a radical reinvention of the genre -- but, then, it's not meant to be. As simple, straightforward arcade-style action with a few unobtrusive additions at a budget price, it's a smashing success.

An uneven effort, MotoGP '08 is a decent game that should please most newbies and occasional riders but proves that Milestone has a ways to go before it fully grasps the handlebars.

Every hero has a weakness, and Justice League Heroes' kryptonite is its laughably lame story. Wait a second, wasn't this game written by an actual comic writer? That's why it's sad that the story is frickin' terrible.

Lost Magic lacks a compelling story or decent balance for the single-player mode, so Wi-Fi battles are pretty much the selling point here. The question is whether or not that's enough, in your opinion, to overcome the game's innate shortcomings.

Smash Court isn't resoundingly bad, by any means -- it just feels a bit irrelevant.

The best puzzlers work for all gamers, and Magnetica lacks the staying power to keep more seasoned puzzle fans interested for long.

The Run takes an awkwardly serious approach to its story, eschewing the over-the-top fun and wackiness of its clear inspirations -- movies like the Cannonball Run series and classic arcade games like Cruis'n USA --to deliver a cross-country campaign that's sometimes exhilarating, but often frustrating and surprisingly banal.

A "solid" game: It works great on a technical level, and presents enough challenge to engage veteran players, but also enough on-screen direction and help to make it accessible to the game's younger audience -- it's just too long.

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.

The younger set might not mind backtracking through old levels, hunting high and low for weapon parts (and that last, pesky, unsmashed crate). But other aspects of Root of Evil definitely aim older, such as the characters -- which include a dead boy, conjoined brainiac twins, and a wiseacre baby with stumps for limbs in a jar of formaldehyde.

The biggest problem is that we've seen everything Juiced has to offer before.

It's too early to say whether PSU will have the same level of staying power in an age inundated with online games, but its pedigree makes this one worth watching -- and playing.

Fun despite its forgettable narrative, and painfully long load times. Fun in the RPG sense, fun in the no-brainer button mashing sense, and fun in the kill monsters with your buddies sense.

Get Even's cities are simple and fairly nondescript, but the game strikes a smart presentational tone, juxtaposing serious-sounding tunes with the obviously bizarre happenings, not to mention visual words of praise ("Cool!") and amusing human radio transmissions ("Our forces are not equipped to take on 2D targets!"). Frustratingly, it comes at a higher cost than expected, as the initial $5 purchase delivers but a single three-stage mission (about 15 minutes of play).

Though it strives to be something more significant, Sigma Star is basically a perfectly decent RPG cross-bred with the most uninspired shoot-em-up to be seen in ages.

One of Advent Rising's most obvious assets is the game's ability to suck the player headlong into an unapologetic (and occasionally pretentious) space opera, all the while maintaining its inertia throughout the journey.

It's maddening to repeatedly fail a mission because you simply can't maneuver that well...especially when the only control you have over your character is movement. If this is the epitome of cooperative games, then I'll gladly go back to playing by myself.

It's more flattering to look at Killer App as another handheld arcade collection with a great upgraded multiplayer version of Light Cycles and a simply bad adventure game thrown in as a bonus.

The graphics and soundtrack warrant a look for their own sake, but it's a light-on-story alternative view of a classic, that's sometimes too easy, sometimes too hard, and never quite the enchanting game I hoped it would be.

The much-touted "Baby Making" game, in which both players enter personal information and then coordinate efforts to cut a cake, is worth trying once if -- and only if -- your house is spotless, you've paid all your bills, and the cable is out.

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.

Overdose doesn't look as good as the original Gungrave -- less texture detail, less variety to the environments -- and the soundtrack is a bad joke.

Even without any significant upgrades, Riviera would still stand out as one of the worthier RPG entries on the PSP.

Since the game mechanic is so straightforward, BlowOut is a very good game to pick up and play for short periods of time without losing ground. Aside from occasional frustrations, it's cheap, mindless shooting fun.

As a port of the arcade game, Shikigami certainly succeeds in delivering the same level of shooting intensity at home on the Wii -- it's just that, fundamentally, this is a game that really only the most hardcore shooter fans will truly master and then enjoy.

We Ski offers an absurd amount of events, objectives, and extras -- and it's all icing on the mountain, as this would be a great game without most of it. The comfortable motion controls ensure that even a simple, leisurely ski around the resort is usually a joy.

It's a rarity for any fighting anime game to have any sort of substance, style and especially, playability. Bandai has done an exceptional job in capturing the show's trademark comedy and battles.

Everything about Star Fox: Assault comes across as competent, yet, frustratingly bland.

It's cheaper, it has all the bells and whistles of its counterparts, and it has extra playable characters that the 360 ver-sion will never see. But this comes at the expense of clearly crappier-than-360 visuals and controls.

This one has a long way to go to feel like real college basketball on the court, and not just off of it. Even with all its glitter, it's dim when compared to the shiny "College Hoops 2K8."

It's not a classic game, but Fullmetal Alchemist 2 ably performs both of its intended functions: it's fun for existing series fans, and a decent enough game that those who haven't had contact with the original property will get far enough that the concept could intrigue them.

The complexity in the competition's certainly a step up from "Wii Sports" and "Wii Play," but without the option to play how you want and when you want, this feels like just another souped-up minigame collection. It's enjoyable -- and to be honest, more fun than I expected -- but it's not quite the evolution of Wii Sports we've been looking for.

It's mild, tame, and exactly what you'd expect from the genre and a title trying to capitalize off of a prominent license: more of the same. Though not broken or particularly bad, this one is clearly middle of the road material.

The odd bit of slowdown and mostly forgettable minigames (aside from the amusing Big Brain Challenge) further detract from the experience, but with great presentation and a genuinely funny narrative that recalls the zaniness of "Earthworm Jim" and "Dead Head Fred," I cannot help but be charmed by Teenage Zombies.

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.

Quotation forthcoming.

For the multiplayer shooter fan, especially for PlayStation 3 owners, there is one solid game to be found in SOCOM 4 and that's with the Competitive mode -- single-player is too generic and Cooperative mode can get old fairly quickly because of limited maps and objectives. It's accessible and easy to get into, but it may grow old far too quickly for most fans of this genre.

Useless analog steering, weird collision issues, and the lack of a decent multiplayer mode keep it from being a winner.

I'm just not convinced that this grab bag of half-baked ideas and gratuitous filler makes for a great videogame. And I learned something about myself, as well: It takes a lot more than sassy books and hermaphrodites to keep my interest these days.

It just doesn't have enough substance to stand out on it's own.

If nostalgia for the original arcade light-gun game, or fascination with the myth of the Mid-West has you by the cockles, then this game may give you a day or two's worth of good times. But anyone with a stricter criteria than that would be hard-pressed to find real satisfaction in what's offered here.

Shadows is halfway there. I experienced plenty of cool "Spider-Man" moments throughout thanks to the basic locomotion and combat and the occasional well-done cut-scene...but Shadows never really hits any sort of stride. Rather, it settles into a rhythm of repetition and drags out as its third act self-destructs.

It's difficult to dismiss the overlying cuteness and simple-but-solid gameplay, which continues to put the series on the top tier of portable RPGs.

Outside of the charming (and yes, very girlie) story and genuinely humorous dialogue, all that's left is a short, extremely easy, and sometimes confusing RPG.

While it's always nice to have a good rhythm game on the go, PaRappa on PSP is still a serious value proposition at $30. There are plenty of extra remixes to download and play (about half of which are decent), but with essentially six levels it's still a more flimsy package than current gamers are accustomed to.

The vaunted cross-platform play works mostly as advertised (including Achievements associated with killing/resurrecting users from the alternate platform), but we still have to question whether it's worth the hassle and cost for PC users.

While it's true that things have improved, that doesn't mean it's suddenly a great game. While the downplaying of the storyline does help streamline the game, it also makes your goals seem a little disconnected and random.

It's technically playable and, despite its best efforts, probably won't plunge the industry into a period of navel-gazing and political sanction. Everything else about it is largely forgettable.

The game's certainly on the short side (with just 18 total songs), but unlike many previous attempts to capitalize on Looney Tunes nostalgia, Cartoon Conductor's whimsical presentation actually matches up well with the fast-paced, familiar rhythm approach -- creating the rare licensed experience that may bring a legitimate smile to your face.

Beyond the reworked graphics, you won't find much legitimately new content here. Patient players seeking an absurd challenge will dig the verging-on-unfair PSP-exclusive Labyrinth of Time dungeon, in which your characters' hit points constantly deplete over time. But truthfully, original additions feel scant.

It would be nice to have a longer main adventure or some mini-games or something to give the game a little bit more meat on its bones, but if you temper expectations, Spider-Man 2 delivers on its promise.

It's a distant No. 2 to this year's unquestionably better "College Hoops 2K7."

The game's not realistic enough to satisfy sim fans...and it's too realistic to be as fun as Rainbow's previous games. It tries too hard to be a jack-of-all-trades, and masters almost none.

The lack of a versus mode is a gross oversight that makes versus battles an uncomfortable chore (the winner can't switch characters without resetting the entire game -- just like in the arcades!).

You won't find a better handheld RPG so fitting for bite-size moments of play, and those cute 'n' marketable pocket monsters are only the icing on the cake.

At its basic level, Transformers on the DS is a pretty average game. But at least Vicarious Visions tried to bring something unique to the table. It's kind of lame that you have to purchase two full-priced games to experience the entire saga (each title is about four hours long), but these are still the best Transformers-movie games you're gonna find.

Despite being a botched rendition of a pair of classics, Legacy of Ys is nevertheless a pair of classics, and that's what ultimately redeems this package -- that and Atlus's meticulous care with the localization.

It's just a shame that, due to Sega's mismanagement of its properties over the last decade or so, Superstars Tennis comes too late to fully resonate with today's gaming audience.

The only real challenges served on this 12 hour adventure are tasks that are more annoying than hard, such as having to negotiate ocean currents in an attempt to reach a beach.

The game begins much too slowly to really captivate. Which is a shame because a lot of gamers who might really appreciate Innocent Life's vibe could very likely put the game down before it's ever really begun.

It comes on the heels of Capcom's own "Resident Evil 4." After you've played a game as breathtakingly beautiful and exhilarating as that, it's hard to take a step back and play something that just feels dated by comparison.

Too hard for novices, too repetitive for veterans, and too silly for warmongers, CivCity Rome falls into the netherworld of games that you wished you could've liked more.

Exciting as cinematic set pieces are, K&L is a game, not a film. By that standard, it fails to do what a game should do: provide you with meaningful choices and tests of skill.

While it's true that things have improved, that doesn't mean it's suddenly a great game. While the downplaying of the storyline does help streamline the game, it also makes your goals seem a little disconnected and random.

If you enjoyed the previous iterations, Battle Network 5 is a worthy successor to the line, but if you were turned off by the kiddie-veneer, the deep strategic gameplay goes a long way towards making it tolerable.

Not to self: some interesting concepts and lot of technically outstanding mechanics don't make for a good title when delivered improperly.

Overall, The Bigs 2 falls short of providing balanced difficulty, instead easy is too easy, while hard is unnecessarily merciless.

Unless you fancy yourself a hardcore DC comics fan, you'll find little to hold your interest in DCUO in its current state after the first several hours of gameplay.

For those fanatic collect-a-thon types, we can easily see the game taking upwards of 60 hours to max out all characters and skills. And that's really what it comes down to.

Other than the simple pleasure of playing in a sandbox and building a really cool version of the Big Apple, TCNY offers players little incentive to keep on trudging through it.

Nothing else holds up to the visuals -- not the music, not the script, not the gameplay. Seriously, it's like you've managed to combine the worst bits of your own games along with the most annoying excesses of Japanese RPGs and came up with something so indescribably bland as to defy logic.

Clone Wars' appeal may reside more with the younger audience than that of the more dedicated gamer -- there just isn't enough of a challenge here for most. As such, this version of the game works better as a substitute to those who can't play the excellent console iterations, or who want something else to play on their 3DS until a more substantial title arrives.

Godfather II suffers from a lack of design foresight. Instead of delivering a movie-quality narrative, it presents a frustrating, accidentally comic world.

Nothing says a simulator can't be fun. I love the idea of plotting out my draft board, targeting free agents, cutting dead weight, and juggling the salary cap. But Head Coach 09 just left me frustrated and angry.

The controls are unbelievable -- they're more fiddly than an Irish wedding. Every button on the PS2 pad is used, and many actions (like firing a weapon) require multiple presses when one could've sufficed.

Full Auto 2's like an arcade game -- fun in short spurts. And the tough secondary objectives in career mode (finish without dying, destroy certain crates, outscore your foe, and so on) help in keeping me coming back in order to unlock the secret cars and weapons.

Ultimately, this is a missed opportunity through and through. I would have expected better from a Codemasters published game.

The one saving grace is the presence of Pac-Man Vs., a sincerely cool multiplayer take on the legendary maze-chase game that got a bit of a bum rap when Nintendo tried to transform it into the cornerstone of the company's business model.

Squad Command is far from perfect, but it is also the closest thing to playing actual Warhammer 40K on a videogame system. Turn-based strategy enthusiasts will definitely want to check this game out, and if you are a Warhammer fan then it is really a no-brainer.