More than enough fun to last through the main story -- especially if you bring a couple friends -- but whether you'll be returning to it again and again over the course of months is dependent largely on your superhero obsession and tolerance for repetition.

For the litany of improvements, the feeling that EA Tiburon has stopped taking any chances with the franchise is inescapable. After six years on the current generation of consoles, it's time to take a risk and give football fans something new to get excited about. As it stands, NCAA Football is in the very unusual position of being both the best-in-class football game, and a total underachiever.

But it also feels like a more polished game, and the base mechanics work extremely well by the time you reach the end of the single-player campaign. It doesn't quite have Riddick's pacing, due to the open city that asks you to find your own way through, but it presents a better feeling of accomplishment and familiarity by the end.

Unfortunately, such a light-hearted plot doesn't seem like a suitable reward for the grueling strategic depth of the combat.

Lunar Knights is easily one of the finest games to date for Nintendo DS. Like the bard said, it plays just as sweet by any other name.

Offline, its hundreds of challenges and miles of roads will keep you satisfied for quite a while. But it's that moment, weaving through traffic in a Maserati, closing in on a TVR, with a Ferrari hot on your heels, all of them driven by real people -- who you're talking with at the same time -- that takes this game past its rivals.

The single-player can certainly be a drag with its difficulty and somewhat mundane (and cheap) competition. But in multiplayer, you're constantly being rewarded in one way or another, whether it be through making progress towards a challenge, gaining fans, successfully risking a wreck to win a race, or winning a race by a hair.

The new Mask of the Betrayer expansion is a stronger, more complex, and ultimately more satisfying game.

The nod back to the cop chase mechanics of the Hot Pursuit games is certainly welcome, plus it's interesting to see that the vaunted "open" gameplay of the last two games has been dialed down by a more forcibly linear structure to keep things interesting.

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.

If you don't have a friend within driving distance, you may want to wait until Guardian of Light's online multiplayer is switched on; the game's single-player mode is competent but incomparable to the sheer joy of raiding tombs with a friend.

This is the best arcade racer on the market today. It's the best one in years.

The team at Rare did an awesome job of retaining a surprising amount of features in this DS iteration. Even the colorful art style makes the transition, though it's understandably nowhere near as gorgeous as Pocket Paradise's console counterparts.

It really seems like the biggest mistake is calling it "DA2," as it's just different enough from Dragon Age: Origins to not feel like a sequel, but more like a reboot. The different main character, the faster and more streamlined combat, and the overall structure makes it feel like a fine Dragon Age adventure, but not a direct follow-up to DAO.

Most of the environments -- despite some moody weather effects in the eerie flooded streets of Poland -- look blocky and blah, especially compared to the much prettier "Battlefield 2." But if you absolutely demand realism over pizzazz, you'll have to re-enlist with SOCOM. It's still the most true-to-life shooter you'll lock-and-load on PS2. [*Single Player review]

Online play -- including both co-op and the deathmatches that made Doom such a phenomenon in the first place -- can hardly even be considered "play." The lag is unbearable, the framerate excruciating. Aiming is nearly impossible.

The game mostly manages to walk that fine line between catering toward the casual and the hardcore, but in those moments when it leans more toward the hardcore crowd, you experience DS-shaking frustration.

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.

Unless you seriously have a thing for turn-based combat and having to really work for your progress, the game isn't for you. But if you do, Gladius is one of the better examples of the genre on the system.

A terrific action-RPG that serves as an example of what a sequel ought to be. It's better than the original, absorbing and well balanced with enough challenge and variety to keep you busy for the 20-plus hours you'll need to get through it.

The game's "exclusion zone" setting, a no-man's-land roughly 30 square kilometers surrounding the Chernobyl nuclear reactor, is very much "Mad Maxim": post-Soviet road warriors just beyond the containment dome. Bleak as the end of the world (or at least life as we know it), it's an invention as gorgeous as years-old graphics overhauled for a late launch get.

After having a chance to check out all three versions, we recommend picking up the Wii version and playing with the Classic Controller -- it's got a much more natural feel than the other two consoles' controllers, especially the wonky Xbox 360 D-pad.

The game is a grand adventure through a fantastical version of feudal Japan, and exploring the mythos and art of this other world should be more than enough reason to give it a try.

Extreme 2, though, offers little to differentiate itself. It's a coincidental callback to 1979's Space Invaders Part II: most of the improvements will matter to those who were already obsessed. For some, that's probably enough for a buy, and if you haven't played SI Extreme before, now's the time, as you're still getting an enjoyable rewrite of an arcade classic. But those who had a passing fancy before can pass it up for the time being.

All 13 of the game's missions are well crafted and challenging, but after four iterations of this series, I felt a need for a new challenge.

The main problem is that it doesn't feel like it was poorly designed, but that simple things were simply forgotten. But really, those things don't make the story any less entertaining, the rock god theme less enjoyable, nor the characters' well-animated faces less expressive. And with long practice and good friends, the multiplayer can be incredibly rewarding.

If only it was a stable product and didn't ship with so many bugs, I would've given New Vegas a higher score.

Castle Crashers is at its best when you've got a handful of buddies playing in the same room (four total, in this case). Taking on the campaign without companions is still sharply amusing (and completely recommended if you don't anticipate playing with friends), but the shared joy of taking in the hilarious set pieces and eliminating giant swimming felines dulls the repetition that comes naturally with beat-em-ups.