A fantastic mix of visual style and creativity, Child of Eden builds on the core concepts of Rez, but also plays it safe by not adding too much to overcomplicate the original formula.

Tough, but fair. Consider it the price of admission to one of the most memorable and best written fantasy video games you'll ever play.

You'd be hard pressed to find another racing game that has the amount of content, refinement, and fun as Dirt 3, whether you're the type of driver who uses his brakes or not.

Volition did a great job creating a variety of missions -- Darius' battles between the Cultists and aliens intertwine extremely well, and don't overlap each other or feel too overwhelming.

Volition did a great job creating a variety of missions -- Darius' battles between the Cultists and aliens intertwine extremely well, and don't overlap each other or feel too overwhelming.

This is vastly different from the countless first- and third-person shooters and all the "me too" open-world games sitting on store shelves. All the things I've only read about in Dashiell Hammett novels, or seen in film classics like Double Indemnity, have all come to interactive life in L.A. Noire.

This is vastly different from the countless first- and third-person shooters and all the "me too" open-world games sitting on store shelves. All the things I've only read about in Dashiell Hammett novels, or seen in film classics like Double Indemnity, have all come to interactive life in L.A. Noire.

Without a doubt, the prettiest and most graphically interesting of the Lego games yet.

Without a doubt, the prettiest and most graphically interesting of the Lego games yet.

Brink is unfinished. And that doesn't mean it's full of technical problems. Well, it's got those too. But mostly, it's just an unpolished, poorly executed mess of ideas.

Thor doesn't pop on Wii, thanks to a campaign anchored at times by repetitive combat and objectives, but die-hard fans burned out on Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 now have a suitably decent standalone option for taking the Norse comic hero for a spin around a few of the nine mythical worlds.

The miserable camera system often zooms in too close to see what you're doing, or makes it impossible to see a necessary location without moving.

The miserable camera system often zooms in too close to see what you're doing, or makes it impossible to see a necessary location without moving.

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.

Even when the least exciting elements of the game eat up half of my playtime, I still find an excuse to fire up Darkspore every single day.

You could easily fill an entire review with the grocery list of games from which Outland cribs its gameplay elements -- Ubisoft's own marketing specifically calls out Ikaruga and Prince of Persia as "inspirations," for heaven's sake. But doing so seems unnecessarily reductive to me, because Outland manages to take those "inspirations" and create something that feels like genuine innovation.

You could easily fill an entire review with the grocery list of games from which Outland cribs its gameplay elements -- Ubisoft's own marketing specifically calls out Ikaruga and Prince of Persia as "inspirations," for heaven's sake. But doing so seems unnecessarily reductive to me, because Outland manages to take those "inspirations" and create something that feels like genuine innovation.

For the multiplayer shooter fan, especially for PlayStation 3 owners, there is one solid game to be found in SOCOM 4 and that's with the Competitive mode -- single-player is too generic and Cooperative mode can get old fairly quickly because of limited maps and objectives. It's accessible and easy to get into, but it may grow old far too quickly for most fans of this genre.

While it's unclear if we'll ever see GLaDOS or Chell again, this much is certain: Portal 2 is one of the best games of this generation.

While it's unclear if we'll ever see GLaDOS or Chell again, this much is certain: Portal 2 is one of the best games of this generation.

Mortal Kombat has achieved something that I never thought I'd see in my lifetime: a fighting game that has more than enough single player content to keep casual players involved, with a gameplay system that can satisfy even the most hardcore fighting game fans. NetherRealm Studios' dedication and attention to detail on all fronts shows that they are much more in tune with what gamers look for when purchasing a new game more so than any other fighting game developer out there.

Mortal Kombat has achieved something that I never thought I'd see in my lifetime: a fighting game that has more than enough single player content to keep casual players involved, with a gameplay system that can satisfy even the most hardcore fighting game fans. NetherRealm Studios' dedication and attention to detail on all fronts shows that they are much more in tune with what gamers look for when purchasing a new game more so than any other fighting game developer out there.

FFIV is great! But it's also well-trodden territory at this point, presented in a technologically unambitious and aesthetically questionable package. The problem with this collection isn't that it lacks anything new, but rather that the new content feels like a pale imitation of the masterpiece it follows.

Perhaps worst of all, the sense of place is gone.

There's a level of creativity, ambition, and polish here that's unusually high for an iPad game, and even in spite of that, the developers have created a modern artistic game that challenges a lot of ideas about what a game can be while feeling retro at the same time.

Assuming you know what you're getting into -- namely, a meaty and occasionally tough action platformer in the 16-bit vein -- there's a lot to love about Monster Tale. It's brimming with detail; the monster evolution mechanics offer plenty of customization and variety; and all in all it's a wonderful homage to the classic games that clearly inspired it.

Bust-A-Move Universe stops just shy of being an irredeemably terrible game, but it's certainly not good.

All Stars serves up some fun arcade-style play and great mix of Legends and modern-day Superstars. However, the game's slow loading sorely needs to be fixed; and its Create A Superstar mode could definitely use a little more beefing up.