While a simplistic RTS is a nice departure from NIS' regular library, GrimGrimoire feels too watered-down and too repetitive to take a place beside some of the other, critically acclaimed titles from this niche publisher.

Nervous Brickdown has style and relative variety, but it's twice the price it should be and a bit too late to the puzzle party.

All in all, while Ratatouille has its enjoyable moments, the main missions leave you feeling a bit hungry for something meatier, while the tasks like slides or races spoil your appetite.

Ratatouille is otherwise a very charming game...when you're not playing it. Its biggest failings are, in the end, the built-in limitations of the hardware, and the genre that most developers keep trying to superimpose -- sloppily -- on top of it.

While Ratatouille has its enjoyable moments, the main missions leave you feeling a bit hungry for something meatier, while the tasks like slides or races spoil your appetite.

But it also feels like a more polished game, and the base mechanics work extremely well by the time you reach the end of the single-player campaign. It doesn't quite have Riddick's pacing, due to the open city that asks you to find your own way through, but it presents a better feeling of accomplishment and familiarity by the end.

It also feels like a more polished game, and the base mechanics work extremely well by the time you reach the end of the single-player campaign. It doesn't quite have "Riddick's" pacing, due to the open city that asks you to find your own way through, but it presents a better feeling of accomplishment and familiarity by the end.

The cocky presentation is fantastic, it looks great (especially the crowds), it plays great, and it just might make you smarter than a session of Brain Age. The Bigs isn't just an absolute hoot -- it's also the best current-gen baseball game money can buy.

It's the nature of arcade sports games to be a fun time, but I didn't expect this one to be so deep. The Bigs has the bells and whistles -- without MLB SlugFest-style BS like punch-throwing or loop-de-loop curves. Thank heavens.

Even with the flaws, The Bigs on the Wii is still fun thanks to the good implementation of the batting. The cocky presentation alone makes it hard to set down your Remote, and you simply can't swing -- really swing -- for the fences anywhere else. But the fielding and baserunning need some more work down in AAA before they're ready for the big show.

The Bigs has the bells and whistles -- without "MLB SlugFest"-style BS like punch-throwing or loop-de-loop curves. Thank heavens. The cocky presentation is fantastic, it looks great (especially the crowds), it plays great, and it just might make you smarter than a session of "Brain Age."

Those who have drained every last moment of enjoyment from the DS game might appreciate it as a way to eke a little more challenge from the experience. And really obsessive types might appreciate the fact that the announcer guy from the cartoon performs (highly repetitious) running commentary during in-game battles. Everyone else, though, will simply regard this as a waste of money.

From looking at it you'd probably never guess it was an Unreal Engine game. It lacks any real distinguishing features, struggles to run smoothly in places, and, aside from a few nice special effects, never remotely approaches the expected visual impact.

A satisfying role-playing experience, as long as you know what you're getting yourself into. Hardcore players may actually lament the slight ease in difficulty and the fact that the game doesn't give them the character development freedom it really should. But as far as portable RPGs go, you could do a lot worse than Hoshigami.

The experiment is a success and testament to the fact that EA really has been spending more time crafting these games as the movies and books become more ambitious. If "Half-Blood Prince" produces the same leap in concept as we've seen here, Potter fans will really be in for something.

The experiment is a success and testament to the fact that EA really has been spending more time crafting these games as the movies and books become more ambitious. If "Half-Blood Prince" produces the same leap in concept as we've seen here, Potter fans will really be in for something.

Does the motion control work? Absolutely. Granted, casting spells with the Wii Remote isn't a perfect affair, but the interactive nature easily pushes the Wii version above the others, despite its higher-resolution console brothers.

The Guild 2 works just fine with its original four classes, but toss in three bor-ing derivatives and it veers toward generic.

If the theory of natural selection holds true, The Adventures of Darwin will find its way into the bargain bins of the world in no time flat. And if you have any intelligence in your design, you'll stay far, far away.

Impressive a feat as creating a 3D shooter with cinematic aspirations for the DS may be, it doesn't mean much when it's not fundamentally fun to play.

Slightly flawed in some spots -- its Career mode, for example, is a pyramid of increasingly challenging events rather than a glimpse into a racer's life -- DiRT is nevertheless a big, beautiful game that goes places previous McRaes have not. It's quite simply one of the finest driving-centric titles to hit the still-new 360 world.

For most, the biggest turnoff to an otherwise engaging game is that it's downright ugly. Choppy water looks like shaky carpet, characters' faces creep you out with their lack of expressions, and the majority of the areas you'll explore are gray and dreary.

The Transformers formula was meant for videogames. Giant robots destroying cities as the forces of good and evil struggle for supremacy. It's too bad the PSP developers weren't able to parlay that into a semidecent game.

At its basic level, Transformers on the DS is a pretty average game. But at least Vicarious Visions tried to bring something unique to the table. It's kind of lame that you have to purchase two full-priced games to experience the entire saga (each title is about four hours long), but these are still the best Transformers-movie games you're gonna find.

Dedicated SimCity fans will definitely appreciate the effort, but otherwise, consider this a reminder that just because you can do something doesn't necessarily mean that you should.

If you have just that tiny hint of obsessive compulsion that a game like Animal Crossing speaks to, but don't much care for the pastoral setting or relaxing pace, this is the way to bring that kind of gameplay to you.

If you've never played this game before, you should first ask yourself, "Why not?" But if you haven't, there are better and cheaper options than this still-good-but-not-as-good-as-the-others version for Wii.

At its basic level, Transformers on the DS is a pretty average game. But at least Vicarious Visions tried to bring something unique to the table. It's kind of lame that you have to purchase two full-priced games to experience the entire saga (each title is about four hours long), but these are still the best Transformers-movie games you're gonna find.