Even more impressive than the game's graphics is Battlefield 2: modern Combat's amazing sound.

With the dust settling now on World of Warcraft, it is becoming more and more obvious that this is by far the best MMORPG currently on the market.

It seems strange to say it, but I wish Super Mario 3D Land was more difficult. That's it's biggest fault at the end of the day. More than half the game is a cakewalk, an entertaining cakewalk, but a cakewalk nonetheless.

It took long enough for a sequel to arrive but Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon offers a spirited romp, a good level of challenge, and might spur some thought regarding your very existence.

It’s definitely shorter than the first episode, but more than makes up for it with way more witty banter and thoroughly enjoyable gameplay with more satisfying puzzles than in the first episode.

While the gameplay experience is now more varied and focused, it remains largely unchanged from the original game.

It's fun and non-threatening, and anyone watching it will be entertained.

On PC, Prototype 2 hums along nicely in the presentation department, but playing a game a game like this with a keyboard and mouse is ridiculous. It's not as accurate as playing with a controller, which this reviewer switched to after about 20 minutes fidgeting with the keyboard and mouse and finding them completely impractical at best and frustrating at worst.

GBA owners and Zelda fans won't be disappointed.

While there’s only two or three hours, tops, of gameplay in Moai Better Blues, it turns out to be a less is more situation: it’s always fun, always funny, always teasing the brain for solutions to puzzles in a short, single-sitting burst.

It’s accessible, it’s fun, the graphics and sound are well done, has the crowd is the best out there, and has enough options and stats to mollify even the most rabid fan of “real” hockey.

Competition has brought out the best in the Madden franchise with Madden NFL 08, an all-around excellent football game that more than atones for its somewhat uneven Xbox 360 showing in Madden NFL 07.

It's one of those titles that is equal parts nostalgia, new content, and addictive play that is the hallmark of so many "instant" classic games nowadays.

The good news is that there’s a lot of environmental interaction, which affects AI’s gameplay.

It may not be the best value for your bucks unless you have a regular opponent to play with, but fans of the theme need not hesitate.

The God of War Collection is the equivalent of Disney releasing a remastered version of Snow White: you know precisely what you're getting (because you've probably already seen it) but it looks and sounds so good you can't help but pull out your wallet to buy it again.

A trip through his cerebral mass would be an interesting journey, just to see where Schafer comes up with his characters and their quirky realms.

Sleeping Dogs had been in development as the next installment of Activision's "True Crime" franchise but the publisher ceased funding and cancelled it. Square Enix turned up to salvage the project and Sleeping Dogs was the result. The fact it turned out as good as it did -- that it's executed so well, performs as well as it does, sets the bar for open world combat and driving -- made Sleeping Dogs, story stumbles aside, the most surprising game of 2012.

Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D is better than the original -- still a difficult game -- but the advantage of being able to close the lid of the 3DS and take a break rather than hurling a Wii Remote in frustration and the lengths the developers went to make the game more accessible without really changing anything about the game elevates the entire experience.

The visuals are excellent, with the interactive backgrounds looking great and reacting perfectly.

If you're looking for a lengthy portable game that will take you around 35+ hours with a lot of customization, then Valkyria Chronicles II will not disappoint. You will not regret a purchase and hopefully this series starts to pick-up a larger fan base.

Training Pokémon and battling trainers (earning badges) and Pokémon alike is still bulletproof and as addicting as ever. The ever-increasing challenge over the course of so many hours, broken up by a bit of exploring and insipid story beats, is great.

In the end, Rogue Legacy is great. It's gobbled up a large amount of my time with untold more hours likely to be consumed in the days and weeks to come.

It has everything you want from a platforming Mario Bros. game and then some.

The gameplay issues really stunt an otherwise solid game. The complaints are really nitpicking, but if I had to pick a golf game to sit down and play, it would still be "Hot Shots Golf 3."

An amazing game, it can single-handedly rekindle the love of the pure sport of baseball that many fans lost (including myself) that fateful lost 1994 strike season.

If this is your first Ratchet & Clank game, you might feel a little bit lost in the characters or story but it's still an enjoyable experience overall.

Lots of fun, there’s really no reason not to get Wii Sports Resort because you get a lot of fun games to play and you get the Wii Motion Plus, which will no doubt come into use with a lot of future Wii games.

Great fun, high replayability, good control, attention to detail, interesting story, high production values, and a great gameplay experience – Jade Empire comes recommended.

With an outrageous plethora of fantasy league-style features, nobody comes close to capturing the authenticity of fantasy leaguing better than EA.

No doubt in my mind, 3DS owners should have Kid Icarus: Uprising in their library of games, especially if action games are a favorite.

OOTP 14 doesn't feature huge changes from last year's model.

Geometry Wars Galaxies is good for long and short play sessions, but it’s the latter of these that make it perfect for times when you don’t really want an extended play session.

Though Fallout 3 is a good game and it lived up to all my expectations, it is certainly not for anyone wanting a quick game.

You get your money’s worth.

The whole game manages a great balance between action and more traditional role-playing elements. It's very good. I like the action parts and the stats/upgrading parts weren't deep enough to lose me.

BioShock 2 is a stellar first-person shooter adventure with plenty of boogey men scares and thrills around every black corner.

Despite lacking some of the customizable features, sheer amount of cars and complexity of GT3: A-Spec, PGR is a well-balanced racer.

There's a surprising amount of strategy involved in fighting the zombies, especially when dealing with more than one.

Dragon Quest IX doesn't do much to break new ground in the genre, but adheres quite closely to elements that have helped define the series over the years. Thankfully it does this very well, providing an entertaining experience well worth spending some time with.

While retaining its gameplay and adding numerous improvements, R6: Raven Shield is definitely worth checking out for any realistic tactical shooter fan.

For all the myriad ways that Human Revolution comes up short, it excels in a single point: you are immersed in the setting.

It’s got everything; humor, excellent cutscenes, great graphics and strong gameplay. What more can you ask for?

The band playing the classic school fight songs, the cheering of the crowd and realistically rendered stadiums combine with the smooth animations that the 60 frames-per second NCAA Football 08 delivers for a magnificent gaming experience, including a perfect balance of solid running and passing controls.

I think it's great that Nintendo is offering an incentive to kids to get them moving with the Pokéwalker. That's pretty much the only thing new happening with HeartGold, everything else is typically addicting of the Pokémon series.

TC3 will do what many other light gun games cannot. Convert fans to the genre. I'm a living example.

If you let it, Nintendogs will warm your gaming heart. Nintendo put more than enough content into Nintendogs to keep your kids and, lets face it, you engrossed for many hours.

Playing this collection on the big screen TV has left me wanting for more.

Metal Slug Anthology is already a tremendous deal for your money, and the fact that it's portable makes it all the sweeter, especially since you can save the game when you quit and return to where you left off.

Find out what Fun is again.

It may not be a WoW-killer, but it certainly gives the Blizzard juggernaut serious competition.

Final Fantasy IV is not just a re-release of something that has been done a thousand times before, it is worthy of being called a remake as they added a lot of new stuff to the game as well as did a serious touch-up of many of the games aspects.

Pokémon Diamond or Pearl will satisfy any fan of the previous games: it’s accessible, it’s fun, it features online play and trading, and the battles are more involved than ever, and you’ll get hours of enjoyment out of it – as long as you play against people your own age.

As in-depth as you need or as simple as you want. And with the multiple modes, great course selection, and unlockables, you'll be playing for a while.

The production values are perfectly tuned to the game's style as the graphics and audio are beautifully implemented. Quite simply, I loved the game.

It looks amazing. But this game isn’t just a pretty face, the deep gameplay and replay value catapult this title head and shoulders above the crowd.

What accounts for the less-than-perfect score is the extreme amount of tweaking it takes to get everything just the way you like it.

Despite some schizophrenic and disagreeable at times controls, with a few new console-centric additions to the already excellent life simulation gameplay, The Sims 3 does a great job of retaining the awesome aura of the PC game while appealing to the console gaming crowd.

With diverse stories and settings, great animations and overall visuals, and strong point & click gameplay along with hilariously smart-ass ribaldry that’s becoming the developer’s trademark, 8-Bit Is Enough is a satisfying series conclusion.

In spite of its issues, Mass Effect is still a completely entrancing blend of two completely different genres, the likes of which we really haven't seen on the consoles since Deus Ex.

Simply put, this is one of the best titles of the year, and marks not only a proper return of the Castlevania series for consoles, but a starting point that future games would do well to follow.

But LIMBO is easily among the best XBLA titles of the year that anybody who plays it won't soon forget for its magnificent art design, tough puzzles and dismally sad story.

Ending with a patented twisted ending with a twist, The Tomb of Sammun-Mak is yet another great point & click adventure of the hilarious and bizarre lives of the Freelance Police, to be continued in episode three, They Stole Max's Brain!

The presentation and some spoken dialogue really do a lot to hold everything else together. Any puzzle/adventure games can be distilled into a collection of puzzles but the lines holding The Diabolical Box together make for a great challenge and an entertaining experience.

The graphics and animation are first rate.

Although the story gets lost on its trip down the highway of quality with plot holes along with a sometimes too-unlikable cast of Harley-loving ruffians, druggies, murderers and criminals, the first DLC content for GTA IV is still a solid game that gives full-price gameplay for a discount price.

Despite a learning curve, gameplay is very smooth, with a first-class presentation, from the fighter introductions, to the actual UFC announcers and referees, to the good audio features of the crowd and impact of punches and kicks onto each fighter.

The improvement of the computer AI is really felt here – if you tend to blitz too often, the computer will start relying on short out patterns that will burn you for a ton of yards.

Phantom Hourglass won't disappoint fans. It has all of the core elements that has made the Zelda series so popular, while also breathing new life into it by introducing intuitive touch screen controls.

While EA will probably never make another Mutant League game of any sort, NFL Street 3 ensures that the game of football can still be irreverent and entertaining at the same time.

The Secret World delivers an MMO experience that's distinctly different from its competitors, and it's likely going to remain the standard for future games in the horror/supernatural genre.

A perfectly enjoyable and satisfying finale, that seems to eliminate the aggravatingly grating Soda Poppers once and for all, along with a grand wrap-up of all of the season's storylines, make "What's New, Beelzebub?" a must-play for all Sam & Max fans until the as-of-yet-unannounced-but-highly-likely-coming-soon Season Three makes its debut soon.

The new game is fascinating, but, for the first time, I found myself thinking back fondly to the previous games in the series.

All in all, NHL 11 is a excellent upgrade over NHL 10 fixing a lot of those issues that we've had with the previous games. Perfect? No, but getting pretty darn close.

Dead Space 2 is enjoyable. It's a great action title but it's the deeper, complicated facets of the game that firmly puts it in the running for Game of Year, even this early in 2011.

Like an exceptionally well-done dramatic movie or must-read book just too good to stop watching or put down, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons has striking visuals, a strong narrative and good-enough puzzles. However, it will be most remembered for its engrossing, dramatic and emotionally charged adventure.

Multiplayer was touted to be the biggest addition to the franchise and it does not disappoint.

If you are thinking about the content of the game while you are working, it’s an addictive game and definitely recommended to those who have enjoyed the franchise up to this point.

It's a side-scrolling platformer where goombas are flattened, blocks smashed, turtle shells hurled, and tricky platforms navigated by, what else, jumping. And the coins... so many coins.

While the campaign length is fairly standard of past iterations of the series, it's worth multiple playthroughs and the multiplayer offers endless hours of fun and enjoyment; whether it's slaying zombies or facing off against other players in a wide range of multiplayer modes with an endless number of loadout combinations.

All in all, NHL 10 is a lot of fun, as I can attest to the 50+ and rising hours that I've put into the game so far. People who purchased the previous year's version may want to hold off for another season for more additions to propagate in the franchise before re-upping.

Despite a somewhat-less-satisfying replacement for previous crash modes, fans of the franchise will find this Burnout to be their idea of paradise, with red-hot racing in a large environment that provides plenty of asphalt-burning events to keep gamers putting the pedal to the metal for mile after scorching mile.

Far Cry 3 is a terrific and is one of the best games I've played in a long time. Far Cry 3's main draw is the deep and engaging campaign, but the multiplayer modes are also serviceable enough to keep you playing for a long time.

It may not surpass the game-of-the-year quality of Call of Duty 4, but certainly is a very good alternative, especially for those looking to fight the online battle with vehicular manslaughter as part of their killing repertoire.

A fresh and exciting step forward in a market that always threatens to be staid and blinkered, and I hope future games will steal (not borrow) its innovation, its excitement and style.

If you’ve never played Ninja Gaiden before, you definitely need to give this game a chance. If you’ve played through the original and are looking for a reminder of why this game is great, it’s definitely worth picking up.

Equal parts fun and gripping game play (and possibly geopolitical commentary, depending on how you look at it), Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare stands as stunning example of a scripted first-person shooter done right that equals or exceeds the other big first-person shooters on the market today like BioShock, Halo 3, and Half-Life 2.

GTA IV is a rollercoaster of emotional gaming hidden under the typical killing and murderous maiming so perfectly provided by the GTA franchise.

From Episode 1 to Episode 3, only three characters I started with are still part of Lee's struggling cadre of survivors. New characters are added to fill the character void but how those voids were created... It's not a "fun" experience in the usual sense, but it certainly is gripping to the point where there's only one thing left to say. Mama?

Pokémon Diamond or Pearl will satisfy any fan of the previous games: it’s accessible, it’s fun, it features online play and trading, and the battles are more involved than ever, and you’ll get hours of enjoyment out of it – as long as you play against people your own age.

Max Payne 3 has an action-packed and long-lasting single-player campaign driven by an expectedly solid single-player story that is a Rockstar trademark. That combines with very entertaining multiplayer that will have gamers playing long after the single-player campaign is complete.

Though modes are limited and there's no two-player connectivity, the one player season experience defeats any console game to date.

Comes close to Pure Gaming Joy.

Black & White is one of the games you will remember 10 years from now as a turning curve for PC gaming. Thank you Peter Molyneux and Lionhead Studios, this game has certainly been something fresh and new.

While a few missing extras and features might keep Third Strike: Online Edition from being the ultimate edition of Street Fighter III, the amount of care put into the core game as well as its online multiplayer easily elevates this release as the definitive version. The

With a great new single-player mode, the addictive and engrossing Legacy gameplay, online Xbox Live matches, the usual collection of boxing's best fighters in history and the further enhancement of great gameplay and boxing physics, Fight Night Champion packs a punch of excellence as an undisputed champion of gaming greatness.

While I wouldn’t way Rome: Total War is a good title for novice strategy players, there’s plenty of depth and fun in this masterful effort from Creative Assembly without being overwhelming.

Black Ops is a must have for any fan of first person shooters.