The survivor mode is like the game itself in a microcosm. It's rote and uninspired, a desultory thoughtless collage of bits and pieces surgically removed from the movies and dropped lifelessly into a dated engine.

The mechanics may not seem as new, and you're always several steps ahead of the story, but the eccentric cast of characters in Ace Attorney is always fun to meet again.

Tropico 3 is a great distraction, if a bit dated and minimal-looking.

The multiplayer component may not be to everyone's taste, but the original game is nothing short of brilliant. Meanwhile, very much like the XBLA version of Rez, it's a game that doesn't show it's age on account of the fact that it was deliberately, stylishly dated to begin with.

If you were hoping for another chance to jump in and explore Rapture, BioShock 2 probably won't disappoint you, but you're not getting the same caliber of twisted, engaging story this time around. It's a standard, straightforward tale, with a few too many holes to be called truly "great," but it's still a fun ride.

If you were hoping for another chance to jump in and explore Rapture, BioShock 2 probably won't disappoint you, but you're not getting the same caliber of twisted, engaging story this time around. It's a standard, straightforward tale, with a few too many holes to be called truly "great," but it's still a fun ride.

Shiren does a great job of straddling the divide between accessibility and challenge, presenting a roguelike experience that may well appeal to any RPG fan. Or at least, any RPG fan willing to give it a chance.

The game is filled with lots of good and well-executed ideas, but they all seem to exist independently of one another. It's a popcorn movie that clearly took a good deal of talent to pull together, but comes up short of creating the grand adventure that it seems to be trying for.

The game is filled with lots of good and well-executed ideas, but they all seem to exist independently of one another. It's a popcorn movie that clearly took a good deal of talent to pull together, but comes up short of creating the grand adventure that it seems to be trying for.

Star Ocean contains an interesting plot buried in its depths, but it's incredibly demanding of your time and your patience.

Still, even with these issues -- and some save points that are just a tad too far apart -- Blaster Master: Overdrive remains the most competent revisitation of the Blaster Master series.

Fret Nice reminds me of LocoRoco in the way its stages aren't terribly difficult to plow through, but finding all of the enemy locations, music notes, and little extras will take a lot of time. Still, I wouldn't advise picking up Fret Nice unless you're okay with abandoning its peripheral-centric gimmick to get down to the game underneath.

Ultimately, Star Trek Online's problem is that it doesn't put enough emphasis on its own ground combat abilities. The action feel much better in space, where properly combining a Tachyon Beam and a boost to auxiliary power can result in the swift annihilation of your enemy.

When I'm in the market for an RPG, it's for a select few reasons: I'm looking for an epic story, rad loot, combat that stimulates the tactical chunks of my brain, and beautiful environments. White Knight Chronicles does none of these things well. To top it all off, the game inexplicably ends after less than 30 hours with most of the major plot points left wholly unresolved.

While pretty much the same game on either system, the PS3 version of Thexder Neo has a couple of advantages over the PSP version, namely an online multiplayer mode where you can complete stages with several other players (though it's somewhat useless, since you still have to finding fellow players of what is, to be honest, a niche game), and the inclusion of the original 8-bit version of Thexder, which is a nice touch for retro game fans.

The game suffers by comparison to stronger titles that are similar enough to make such a comparison unavoidable.

When Mass Effect 3 rolls around to bring this tale to its finale, I'd really like to see BioWare strike some sort of happy medium between the clumsily executed RPG mechanics of the first game and the stripped-down shooter feel of this sequel. But even with its simplified mechanics, ME2's story makes for a compelling odyssey.

A fine sequel that takes the fun parts of the original (the combat, the characters, the dialogue) and tries to make those the focus while practically quartering off the weaker parts. By being the high-quality, consistently enjoyable action game it wanted to be the first time around, Desperate Struggle is now a must-buy, and at the very least, finally makes the series deserving of the evangelism surrounding it.

TVC, while a fun game, isn't the best in the Versus series. It's definitely better than Marvel Superheroes vs. Street Fighter, but it trails behind Marvel vs. Capcom 2.

MAG is unlike anything else on PS3. In fact, it's unlike anything else on any console system.

Vandal Hearts may be competent at what it does, but its derivative throwback nature doesn't do much for a genre that's in desperate need of innovation.

DBC's trouble goes deeper than simple poor design; there's no vision here, no sense of what the "point" of the game is.

Vandal Hearts may be competent at what it does, but its derivative throwback nature doesn't do much for a genre that's in desperate need of innovation.

It's just a damn shame that the nigh-amazing "The Rocketeer versus UFOs" premise crashes hard into "tepid Gears of Uncharted knock-off" ground.

It's just a damn shame that the nigh-amazing "The Rocketeer versus UFOs" premise crashes hard into "tepid Gears of Uncharted knock-off" ground.

It's just a damn shame that the nigh-amazing "The Rocketeer versus UFOs" premise crashes hard into "tepid Gears of Uncharted knock-off" ground.

Shattered Memories gives you something to think about, even if you don't feel like you have direct control over how events transpire -- a result of the game's non-binary, open-ended decisions, both in how you play the game and in the "psychological profiles" you undergo.

DV Zero surprised me with its well-laid-out, retro-style platforming -- so much so that my daily commutes flew by as I kept my nose in the screen. I would love to see a follow-up, but as this was basically a promotional tie-in, there's little chance of that happening.