Although Shadows of the Damned has fun and interesting moments, the end product turns out to be a decent to slightly above average shooter that, at times, feels a little bland.

For any other legacy, this game would be just fine. For the iconic Godfather series, it really could have been something with more of a Brando weight. But even though it's more of a Tony Soprano, The Godfather: The Game still manages to deliver a solid gangster experience.

Pro Evo feels more like real soccer, but it doesn't really look like it a lot of the time.

Gamers who have been burned by the obscene difficulty of the first two Zero titles might be expecting number 3 to be more torture, not realizing that this time, they're actually given a fair opportunity to win. Zero is sorry he hurt you.

This isn't to say that ATV Offroad Fury 4 is bad, it's just that its handheld sibling is a little more imaginative.

KW does just about everything you'd want an expansion to do. If only it came with a replica of Kane's helmet, it'd be perfect.

Some repetitive puzzle design and a half-baked multiplayer component still aren't enough to completely tarnish Singularity, however. Beneath its flawed exterior lies a fine shooter that experiments with time manipulation more aptly than any game since Braid.

All of the things EA did right with FIFA World Cup 2006 are overshadowed by the simple truth that what should be the most fun part of the game -- having exciting scoring chances -- is completely negated by shoddy game performance near the nets.

Instead of creating a wide variety of situations, the dev team relied on key-card hunts, escort missions, and (surprisingly pointless) vehicle-piloting sections ad nauseam.

It may not be deep and customizable, but it's addictive and furious and more fun than it has any right to be.

These two games are badass. Those of you who remember them fondly from your Osh Kosh days will be swept up in a wave of nostalgia right at the title screen, and everybody else will be hooked from level one.

It's the nature of arcade sports games to be a fun time, but I didn't expect this one to be so deep. The Bigs has the bells and whistles -- without MLB SlugFest-style BS like punch-throwing or loop-de-loop curves. Thank heavens.

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.

It's weird...very weird. And whatever your expectations are, they're likely wrong. I enjoyed playing it, surely -- I just wish that it were as frustration-free as it is unique.

It offers a stellar single-player adventure mode experience, a ton of unlockables, a comprehensive two-player versus mode, and best of all, the original freakin' "Mortal Kombat II" arcade game. For all of these different modes in a single game, the price tag is practically a steal.

If there's a real argument for getting BF2MC for the 360 it's that the real heart of the game -- its online multiplayer -- feels so at home on a machine that treats going online as second nature.

You won't spend as much time with True Crime, but that time will be spent enjoying nicer visuals and a very deep story experience, as opposed to flipping cars across parking garages.

The most distinctive thing about the Taiko games is the bizarre cast of characters Namco has invented for the series.

There's a great deal of game here, which speaks to just how smart Sega is in iterating on a small collection of stages, rather than going the usual route of wasting valuable HD assets on a series of sprawling (and typically unplayable) levels for Sonic to get lost in.

And that highlights Scott Pilgim's real problem: the lack of any online multiplayer. If you want to play with friends, they have to be sitting on the couch in the same room with you.

The costumes are a nice step in the right direction of adding new gameplay, but what a hypothetical fourth game really needs is an entirely new set of gadgets to play with.

Sophistication's not UAW's strong suit: It flaunts its influences on its sleeve and thrives on its absurd outlandishness -- an exploitation RTS, suitable for midnight screenings.

Daytona is back to show us that the fun of driving in a video game doesn't necessarily require realism.

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.

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

The combat and visuals -- which are what Shank has always been about -- have taken big steps forward to the point that I'm not sure the original Shank even needs to exist at this point. Except for historical value, perhaps.

I'd have to consider this the version of last resort: If you have the chance to check out the game on any of the other platforms, I'd recommend doing just that.

In the end, it's hard not to fall a little bit in love with Railroads!, because it's just a lovable kind of game. Now if only they'd release some scaled-up maps to match the game's ambitions.