What Clear Sky doesn't deliver is the abject, adjust-your-gamma terror of its predecessor.

Thanks to a borrowed "Prince of Persia: Sands of Time" engine, Luke's moves are fluid and smooth. Whether he's hoisting himself up on crate or wielding a lightsaber his actions are lifelike and accurate.

The microphone mini-game selection is too small to make Mario Party 6's appeal that much wider. But for those who appreciate sitting down for a long night of Star collecting and raucous behavior, Mario Party 6 is a polished upgrade with solid improvements.

I enjoyed myself while playing Live 10. It's slick and mostly captures the feel of NBA basketball. I hope that next season, Live takes the new, inexperienced player into account and helps them learn to enjoy the game as much as the hardcore player.

What keeps me coming back to War in the North is the fact that the game does a remarkable job of divvying out loot. Enemy drops, breakable items, and eager shopkeepers are all there to make sure that you always have a consistent IV drip of high-fantasy swag at your disposal.

Worth a look for anyone who simply craves a quality RPG for the GBA.

What keeps me coming back to War in the North is the fact that the game does a remarkable job of divvying out loot. Enemy drops, breakable items, and eager shopkeepers are all there to make sure that you always have a consistent IV drip of high-fantasy swag at your disposal.

It's almost becoming a cliché to wrap up reviews of Nintendo games with statements like, "It's not quite a complete and satisfying experience, but fans of novel gameplay should give it a try" -- unfortunately, though, there's not much else to say about Swing.

I'm impressed by the effort on the part of Digital Extremes to deliver a satisfying sequel that builds on the ideas of the first game. Jackie's empowering abilities encourage players to experiment and try different tactics, and ultimately allow every player to discover combat techniques that they think work best. His world is realized through a remarkable graphic style and nuanced and meaningful character interactions.

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.

Of course, most people will rightly expect to play Scrap Metal with friends (or random strangers over XBL), and the game makes a very entertaining time-waster when multiple meat puppets are involved. Just make sure you don't bogart the nitro boosts or your friends may never speak to you again.

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.

I'm impressed by the effort on the part of Digital Extremes to deliver a satisfying sequel that builds on the ideas of the first game. Jackie's empowering abilities encourage players to experiment and try different tactics, and ultimately allow every player to discover combat techniques that they think work best. His world is realized through a remarkable graphic style and nuanced and meaningful character interactions.

Altogether, the game spins an interesting tale, and though it might borrow some ideas a little heavily from certain other games, it implements them well.

Altogether, the game spins an interesting tale, and though it might borrow some ideas a little heavily from certain other games, it implements them well.

There's nothing at all safe about this game, and as a result the finished product is raw, unpolished and lacking depth -- but it's also one of the most "next-gen" and exciting games you can play right now on 360.

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.

What it lacks in sophistication it manages to make up for in being longer and more difficult, which should be more than enough to please ardent fans, if not more casual RPG enthusiasts.

For fans, Ultimate Ninja 3 has a lot to offer.

The interplay between the A.I. character and the player character for both puzzle solving and combat adds layers to the gameplay, and the story has its moments. But this definitely isn't "Ico 2."

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.

Wolfenstein's plot is little more than an excuse for you to revisit the titular Wolfenstein castle and cause unnecessary mass destruction, but even without the added magical powers, Wolfenstein is built on a solid foundation and packed with hectic action.

To call Shadow Complex inspired by the Metroid series would be a terrible slander to the word "inspiration." It's not so much that the developer, Chair, looked to Super Metroid for ideas as it is that they took a sheet of wax paper and did a rubbing of Samus Aran's entire career. It's a clone.

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

It worries me a bit that I'm starting to enjoy all this tedium.

In terms of sheer creepiness only "Silent Hill" can give it a run for its money, and Fatal Frame inspires dread in such a different way that it's really worth experiencing.

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's a highly compelling new form of social gaming, if only because the already-bizarre nature of the experience makes the promise of new settings and potential abilities an exciting prospect.