A miniexpansion where armor and air are the keys to gameplay doesn't really add a lot to the whole BF2 experience, but it's nice to indulge without having to fight for a plane.

You're better off picking up a third-party Wii lightgun casing if that's what you're after, but Crossbow Training provides a surprisingly satisfyingly -- and cheap -- slice of Zelda all by itself.

Ultimate Alliance is 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.

Decent enough while it lasts, but not exceptional in any way. It's the sort of game you play through once and never pick up again -- in fact, the default difficulty is easy enough that this cycle can complete itself in a weekend if you give it some effort.

Shallow fun after all, and it's fun nonetheless. On that mental list we all have about the Wii's capabilities, it's safe to cross off "racing."

If you think "Total Annihilation's" still the cat's pajamas, look no further than Supreme Commander. It's the "ID4" of videogames -- a little sleepy early on, occasionally a little baffling, but incontrovertibly epic...and you're here as much for the light show anyway, right?

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.

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.

Where the developers really missed the boat was in multiplayer. The standard combat arenas are all well and good, but that's pretty much all there is.

The end result is a good-if-you're-into-it, poorly performing, but interesting social experiment that seems more geared toward determining how players will react to certain situations than challenging them in new and exciting ways to accomplish tasks that are fun and engaging.

MTX may be fun to drive, but it's a little short on car-wreck appeal, which probably has to be considered an important factor in an extreme sports game.

The janky camera makes combat tough during crucial moments and makes things increasingly difficult when you're racing against the clock to lay down an aerosol tag. It makes you wonder if the game would have been better off in first-person view, but on the other hand, you would lose the immersion of being Trane.

By enlisting graffiti legends such as Futura and Shepard Fairey and hip-hop artists like P. Diddy and Talib Kweli, Getting Up presents itself as an immersive experience for those new to graffiti culture. This is where Getting Up shines: It is a game that can provide what no other game has before (no, we won't compare it to "Jet Set Radio").

It's a great change of pace form the strict style of traditional NBA games and it's extremely satisfying to take a scrub from the street and posterize Yao Ming. Just don't plan on doing much else.

But because the "sport" itself is so simplistic at its core and there's not much beyond the standard exhibition and tournament modes, $29.99 would be an easier price to swallow.

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]

It's very much the baseline definition of a Japanese console RPG -- with all the bad and good that entails.

Unless you really, really like the franchise, this collection will do nothing whatsoever for you -- it's six largely identical games of varying quality. For those who can't get enough of that robo-rock/paper/scissors action, the exceptional quality of these ports (and the promise of a "new" spin-off) should be more than enough to offset the repetition.

If instead you'd like a cup of real-time Warhammer that's like the Total War series' tactical battles -- only with magic, monsters, and that trademark "grim world" panache -- this is that game. To Warhammer hardcores, that might sound like nerfing. It's not.

Despite the enemy repetition, you'll insist on plowing throw the stages repeatedly, trying to attain a high score in order to build up your inventory of unlocked items. Between the friendly price tag ($30) and no need for additional lightgun add-ons, it's an enticing value.

For players that can muddle through the often copious and tedious battles and sometimes lackluster environments, this is a worthy Castlevania adventure -- and thanks to the devil forging and item creating, a rather unique one at that.

The janky camera makes combat tough during crucial moments and makes things increasingly difficult when you're racing against the clock to lay down an aerosol tag. It makes you wonder if the game would have been better off in first-person view, but on the other hand, you would lose the immersion of being Trane.

If you're still a big fan of F.E.A.R. and you're itching for some more horror-type FPSing, Extraction Point will give you eight hours or so of the good stuff. Keep in mind, though, that this expansion seems even more resource-hoggish than the original.

It attempts a lot of ambitious things and it almost succeeds at every one. But it's apparent that these grandiose ideas may have been a little too much to master the first go-round. But hey, at least the groundwork is laid for a killer sequel -- right, Ubisoft?

Ultimately, Tribes of the East manages to gobble time as effectively as any good Heroes installment; it's an impressive final outing for Heroes V -- and another strong showing from Nival.

Taking manual control of the defensive secondary is a losing proposition. Neither the swat nor intercept moves respond intuitively to the buttons, and the new smoother animations seem to come with the penalty of making it harder to figure out what the right place is to make your move.

Rare is still very much Rare: inspiration is taken from multiple sources, a solid-but-unspectacular game is built on that inspiration, every imaginable color and graphical effect is dumped on top of it, and everyone is given an awful pun for a name.

Lemmings on the PSP is basically the same game it was 15 years ago. But with new-and-improved eye candy and on-the-go play, Lemmings is worth a fresh look, because some of the new (and old) levels will no doubt challenge that gray, gooey mass that sits in your skull.