It's visually impressive, plays well, and -- best of all -- is meant to be enjoyed in short bursts. Almost a portable action movie, Pursuit Force offers plenty of thrills. However, like its silver-screen inspirations, it ultimately leaves one feeling unfulfilled.

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.

It's enough to keep golfing fans entertained, and it's nice to see Camelot's golf system enhanced with motion controls. But, like I mentioned earlier, players looking for a more true-to-life golf sim on the Wii may want to go with something like Tiger Woods -- or simply just play more of Wii Sports Golf, which comes packed in with the system.

This is a solid game overall -- and without a doubt, All-Pro Football should continue building on this foundation. But if you were expecting 2K euphoria after two years on the sidelines, you'll be disappointed, as this one's got rust in many of the wrong places.

Savage 2 isn't perfect -- squads are semirandomized smatterings of players unable to communicate or coordinate fluidly as of this writing, and the game can be overwhelming to new players -- but its ambition is matched only by the amount of fun you'll have playing.

If you're masochistic and don't mind awkwardly paced gameplay, you may actually enjoy Uprising. For everyone else, playing this game feels like paying someone $15 to punch you in the face over and over again.

For the moment, the single-player game is all we can base this review on. In that respect, SiN Episodes only flirts with greatness.

Being able to hop on Wi-Fi for a quick frag here or there, even if it was only with three other people, could have spawned an active online community. While that omission may limit its long-term appeal for some, Call of Duty 4 on DS remains an impressive accomplishment and a game worthy of the name.

It's fun, perhaps, but fun in ways that are so odd that it's hard to say whether any given player will get the joke.

When the strength of the game lies solely on the shoulders of an inconsistent narrative in a limited yet gorgeous environment, I can't help but feel robbed of an experience that should be greater than the sum of its parts.

Taken as an afternoon sitting with an old friend reminiscing about the good old days, it works. But that's where it ends. The PS2 chapter of Ace Combat has closed.

If you're a patient gamer who can ignore the tedious aspects, you'll find COTN a good city building game with several original ideas. For the rest of us, the good background music and pleasing graphics make it feel like a very good interactive screensaver.

Raskulls isn't perfect, but it is lighthearted, funny, and a good value at 800 Microsoft points ($10).

In the end, if you're a football fan on the go, this one won't disappoint. There's plenty to tackle, and the returning minigames alone could get you from coast-to-coast without a moment of boredom.

A flawed port of a brilliant game. The quality of the original product shines through regardless, and it's still a fine way to spend an afternoon with a friend, but it's impossible not to be disappointed. Because it should have been so much better.

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.

So the single-player campaign is plenty entertaining. Unfortunately, it's also almost ridiculously short: If you're playing very carefully, you can spend a dozen hours in single-player, but you can almost definitely breeze through in six or so hours, maybe even less.

If you're a competent gamer with a steady hand you'll be able to complete every challenge eventually, but beating the game "clean" is going to require quite a specific skill set that may ultimately not make this entertaining for everyone.

While it may be the most lackluster chapter to date, it's still pretty entertaining -- but only in small doses. Just be aware that the price is too high and the replayability is too low.

The controls hold up better than in most platformers, the levels are well-designed, and your character has a good repertoire of attacks.

If you can ignore the gimmickry and the middle-of-the-road visuals, you'll find an entertaining baseball game that'll keep you just as engaged as the rest of the crop this year. MVP Baseball has little to worry about.

Sims 2 for consoles is definitely not on par with the depth and ingenuity that its PC sibling offers but it's refreshing to play a relaxed version of the game that doesn't require as much surveying and emotional input.

It doesn't do anything you haven't seen before in an Xbox Live Arcade title, but that doesn't mean you won't get your money's worth in content and downright clever, addictive design. In reality it's a second chance for an unreceptive Western audience, but card nerds know it for what it really is: a second coming.

As an adventure game, UNS' pacing feels slow and forced, with the best parts (the bosses) at the end of a chapter. As a fighting game, UNS defies conventions by using an atypical third-person approach, but its execution feels a bit loose and sloppy. The beautiful visuals may attract a new audience outside of the Naruto brand -- but not many devout followers.

It doesn't stand on its own quite as well as some of this year's other music titles, but it's still a fun, quick romp through pop music seen through a Lego filter.

Sims 2 for consoles is definitely not on par with the depth and ingenuity that its PC sibling offers but it's refreshing to play a relaxed version of the game that doesn't require as much surveying and emotional input.

Worth a tour if you really loved the movie, but maybe less so if you've already played the hell out of Vice City. We can't really blame Scarface for the familiarity of the setting, but the fact remains that we've been here before.

It's a bit of an awkward comparison, but I see shades of "Ninja Gaiden" here: It's unassailably gratifying when the mechanics finally click and you start slicing and volleying your way to victory, but at the same time, it's prohibitive to folks who don't want to spend hours in the school of hard knocks, pursuing what should be a relatively uncomplicated act of learning the game's basic rules and logic.