Where The Red Star is best is in its combat system, which brilliantly blends melee attacks, shooting, and blocking defenses. There's an almost poetic beauty with the mastery of these, as you unconsciously perform incredible attacks by switching between and blending the three.

Despite the stylishly designed menu display, the attractive mechs, and the occasionally breathtaking clash between LFOs, Eureka Seven Vol. 2: The New Vision is just too uneven a game to recommend to anyone besides the hardcore fan base -- who have already purchased this game.

The differences between Diamond and Pearl and their predecessors are small, but they add up. Refinement is paramount here -- refined balance of battle skills, refined relationships between monster types -- as is expansion.

The differences between Diamond and Pearl and their predecessors are small, but they add up. Refinement is paramount here -- refined balance of battle skills, refined relationships between monster types -- as is expansion.

How two quality ops managed to screw up Theatre of War is anyone's guess.

If Pocket Pool developer Hyper-Devbox were really smart, it would stop beating around the bush and come up with an Official PSP Porn Viewer, with all the bells and whistles you'd expect from iPhoto. Masquerading this nonsense around as a game that people are expected to pay money for when pool halls are cheap, photos of women are free, and good PSP games are plentiful -- well, it's embarrassing for everyone involved.

No surprises. It's the puzzle game you know and (potentially) love on the Wii, and it's $40. Seems pricey, but at least you know what you're getting.

Sure, running around the dungeons and slashing through enemies is enjoyable enough -- and, dare I say it, even fun at times. But as soon as you attempt to play through Valhalla Knights like its an actual game, it completely falls apart.

The flight-sim world craves a good Vietnam-era helicopter sim, but Whirlwind Over Vietnam's anemic content would've been more suitable for a good demo than a full game.

It skews a bit young with its cartoonish characters, but the storyline is surprisingly dark, and the experience is more challenging than you might think. It's a perfect game to play through with your kid or younger sibling, and it's meaty enough for full-grown platforming fans to enjoy on their own.

While it's far from the platforming/role-playing godsend that some Nintendo fans expected, Super Paper Mario still qualifies as a must-play for any Wii owner. It's creative, fun, and perhaps most importantly, funny.

Vaguely addictive.

For those who want a title like this on the PSP, there's a game to love hidden down deep in here. You just have to dig through a bunch of technical obstacles to get to it.

Downloadable content gives the 360 version a potential ace in the hole, but the first wave released comes as a mixed blessing.

It's nice to have a different feel applied to the Prince of Persia gameplay, but after the novelty wears off we side with the simpler GameCube controls.

After a few hours, it feels like you're going through the motions instead of getting caught up in the story and characters.

Its parts are largely equal, which only leads to confusion. What becomes most important: building card decks, or mastering the minigames? Or, in the big picture, do you buy this game to play minigames or go on a chocobo adventure? There are simply too many things vying for your attention, and more than likely, none of them will get much of it.

It never becomes fun. It looks awful and sounds even worse. It could almost be recommended ironically as a game so bad that it's entertaining or as a basis for some sick drinking game (take a shot every time an enemy gets stuck on a corner), but it's even too bland for that.

It's not an entirely new idea, but it executes it well and definitely crawls its way into your waking consciousness after a few too many rounds (surely you've had lucid "Tetris" dreams?).

Penumbra: Overture hits all the old notes like the Stones on their tenth farewell tour.

The uninspired title selection and painfully compromised presentation are heartbreaking disappointments, given the sheer amount of effort and love that Konami clearly put into the rest of the package. It's like sitting down for a meal at a four-star restaurant and opening the sterling silver lid covering your china plate...to find a cold White Castle burger sitting there.

But all transgressions are forgiven once you make it to Episode 5's finale -- a surprising, sparse, and spot-on little jaunt into "Reality 1.5" that'll likely stand as the series' landmark moment once it's bundled into a season.

For all its subtleties, C&C3 might as well be subtitled "speed trumps tactics," something that's especially obvious if you've seen the videos of C&C3's BattleCast feature.

Yep, if it's in this Medal of Honor, it's been in one before. Only this time out it feels more like leafing through a series of postcards sent from someone playing through a real Medal of Honor game.

When looking at this strictly from a playability sense, this game's easy to learn and fun to master.

It looks great on paper, but in execution it just isn't enough.

OK, so Shivering Isles doesn't reinvent the fireball. But the impeccable design and construction of the original game breathes life into this expansion -- not, as you might assume, the other way around.

OK, so Shivering Isles doesn't reinvent the fireball. But the impeccable design and construction of the original game breathes life into this expansion -- not, as you might assume, the other way around.