NCAA March Madness 08 definitely gives it the old college try and is still a solid college basketball game overall, but just the act of trying to be great isn’t good enough, particularly when there’s not much of an upgrade from its predecessor in the franchise.

If you like your strategy games with a sense of fun about them, while still offering some actual strategy, Universe at War: Earth Assault should speak to you.

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.

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.

Godzilla Unleashed: Double Smash feels like something is missing. The game had the potential of being an excellent fighting title but in the end, this monster is feeling rather hollow.

Rock Band is an incredible evolution of what Harmonix has been doing for years.

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.

I’d actually have to agree these criticisms I just don’t think it detracts from the overall arcade-like vibe that I want from a game like Time Crisis 4.

It's priced as a budget title, but unless you're a big fan of pirates, there's not a lot here for the average gamer.

It doesn’t make TimeShift a bad game, it edges slightly above average thanks to the time powers.

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune is a gorgeous game. But it's heartening to realize that they seem to have spent just as much time making sure Uncharted is fun.

There are still chills and thrills to be found in ProStreet’s more organized “underground” racing series, though, as the racing action still very much fills the need for speed for racing gamers.

It's an old school run-n-gun shooter that perfectly captures the flavor of the best "bad sci-fi" movies out there.

Crysis has been on the receiving end of a lot of hype for quite some time now, so there has been tons of pressure for the game to perform well. By and large it has. It looks very good, and the gameplay is solid with some fun new tweaks thrown in.

Those expecting a more action heavy experience will feel a little let down, but as a puzzle heavy action game, Lara can more than hold her own.

Combined with an excellent soundtrack and the same stylish look that SNK is know for, this somehow manages to beat even Neo Geo Battle Coliseum as one of the best 2D fighters they’ve put out in a long, long time.

Smarty Pants is a perfect Wii title for a family fun night that will tease the brain and tickle the funny bones.

EA has set a high standard here; 16-player multiplayer just won't be the same. But if multiplayer is not your thing, the single-player modes provide more than enough value.

Medal of Honor 2: Heroes doesn’t really bring anything new to the table. However, like any good sequel it keeps what worked in the original and improves on much of what was wrong.

Alien vs. Predator: Requiem is not a bad game, it’s just not the best game in the AvP universe.

Overall, Cooking Mama 2: Dinner with Friends is entirely inoffensive fun, even if it lacks in the challenge department.

Instead of concentrating on a single-player and at least making it competent, the team had to split resources and make a haphazard multiplayer feature as well.

Compared to many other wrestling games, FPWR is a much more old school affair, but it is also extremely details oriented.

The game comes together so well and with so much polish and fun, that Wii owners should not let Super Mario Galaxy slip them by.

There aren’t that many fighting games for the DS so Ultimate Mortal Kombat doesn’t have much competition but it’s still a good fighting game, pardon the cliché, on the go.

If you are still stuck on the edge of strategy games, hanging on to what you can before delving into the real-time games that seem more popular now – your are going to love this game.

What really kills the game for me is the load of historical inaccuracies and anachronisms. I know, games are supposed to be fun, games are not supposed to be exactly like reality.

There are plenty of hijinks and hilarity to be found during Ice Station Santa in the unraveling of the Santa legend, Sam and Max style.

I can understand a game being derivative, but only so long as it adds something good to the mix. Empire Earth III fails to meet up to the standards of the games that came before it. It has failed to learn from its own history.

The concept of SOCOM Tactical Strike is remarkably cool, and when the controls aren't getting in the way, it's a pretty fun game.

Even with the strikes against it, Scene It? is fun with a few other players and it’s accessible enough that even the non-gamers can play.

F.E.A.R. Files plays very similar to the original F.E.A.R. and doesn’t offer much in the way of an upgrade, yet at the same time F.E.A.R. Files does offer quite a bit of content.

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.

All in all, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was one of the best FPS games that I’ve played in the last 5 years and hope that the designers can be enticed into additional single player campaigns or a quick release of the next game if not.

The first downfall of Build-a-Bear Workshop is that there's no spoken instructions.

With TimeShift, the price of admission gets you a very challenging shooter with a lot of fantastic special effects and excellent graphics, but not much else.

In the end, Bee Movie is harmless fun.

Its gameplay isn’t any more innovative than the average action title, and the camera is as ridiculously dysfunctional as the Simpsons family, but the stellar story more than atones for it, as The Simpsons Game is the best Simpsons game to date, bringing Springfield and its denizens to life as never before.

For the money, Super Collapse 3 is a good purchase, with many potential hours of time wasting during your commute.

Once one gets past the controls and somewhat cold, distant storytelling, what remains makes for a pretty good time.

Forget the other versions exist and enjoy this one for the boss battles, great multiplayer and all around good rockin’ time.

I was surprised with Guitar Hero III – surprised that I actually enjoyed pushing buttons in time to music. It’s not really rockin’ out, but it sure is fun and I’m a little sorry I missed the previous titles.

Those expecting a more action heavy experience will feel a little let down, but as a puzzle heavy action game, Lara can more than hold her own.

It’s certainly the best Sims game to wash ashore any console in awhile, and will please fans of the Sims franchise while being a alluring adventure for those Wii owners not already acclimated to the Sims PC gaming juggernaut.

As a game, it's a little bit hard to recommend this, especially considering that it's basically just an assemblage of Flash-style games, the kind you could play for free on a movie promo site.

Like youth, EA Playground’s single-player mode is fleeting, but still a fun romp through the schoolyard of mini-games.

The idea of WWII espionage and sabotage efforts on the Eastern Front is ripe with possibilities for a game, but Death to Spies bungled the execution on this one.

Puzzle fans will likely glom onto Mercury Meltdown Revolution and will revel in the challenge, creative levels, and the basic and accessible control scheme, but unless you're a puzzle fanatic there's only frustration to be found.

While the Tony Hawk franchise soars once again, it certainly hasn’t flown into the same stratosphere of excellence reached by earlier Tony Hawk games.

With all its faults, Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground is still a fun experience. And even though you know exactly what you’re going to get even before you open the box, that doesn’t make the game bad, it just means it’ll fill you up with empty calories.

NBA 08 feels like an almost finished game.

At the end of the day, I’m looking for fun from my games and NBA 08 has enough options to suite whatever mood I might be in when I start it up. All of that and a decent basketball game? It’s a no-brainer for basketball fans on the go.

Succulent and juicy sweet gaming goodness – The Orange Box is waiting to be unpeeled.

Episode 2 is an awesome example of packing various kinds of gameplay into a compressed time span without the whole thing descending into a discombobulated mess.

Portal can be bought separately or as part of the Orange Box package – Half-Life 2, Episodes 1 and 2, and Team Fortress 2 – but either way you get one of the best gaming experiences of the year.

Overall great stuff and it makes you wonder how EA will improve upon this… maybe they should start with improving the corner kicks.

The on-field play is actually pretty good, forgiving, of course, the standard stumbling points for sports games, like repetitive commentary.

Loki: Heroes of Mythology may not bring anything really new or exciting to the table, but if you enjoy this sort of game you will find hours and hours of enjoyment and after all, that’s really what it’s all about isn’t it?

The PSP is finally getting some solid original content and this one is among its finest. I highly recommend you give this one a spin.

It definitely takes the edge off for younger players who just want to have fun but it provides little risk for those expecting some kind of severe punishment or challenge.

But for their kids, Friend or Foe is excellent preparation for more complicated action games until they graduate to Teen games thanks to the depth of the combos.

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.

The upshot of all this, is that there’s only way for NBA Live to go on Wii and that’s up. They can’t go much lower than 08.

“Real” basketball takes the court once again in NBA Live 08, bringing a much closer to real-life representation of the NBA, and even the world hoops scene, to the Xbox 360.

Navigating the environments with a controller isn't as intuitive as a mouse and keyboard setup, but with a bit of patience and some experimentation… well, Bungie has seen to it that Halo 3 will probably be the most played Xbox 360 game for at least the next year.

With apologies to the Combat Mission franchise, Opposing Fronts has started to encroach on the "pure sim" functions of "dice rolling" strategy games, but wrapping it all up in good looking, frenetic action make it accessible to a much wider audience.

It promotes gratuitous nudity, reckless disregard for life and limb, vulgar language, crass behavior, and careless attitudes towards the destruction of personal property. And yeah, it's fun.

It’s not exactly The Sims, being toned down to appeal to a much younger audience. In fact, it’s hard to believe anybody except females under the age of 14 will find the MySims’ pastel-colored universe and sugarcoated characters a charming gaming adventure.

What seemed like a worthless waste of effort by the EA Black Box development team in daring to take on the mighty Tony Hawk skating franchise turns out to be completely worthwhile as the new kid skating around the block is anything but a wannabe poseur.

Heavenly Sword will run you about 6 – 7 hours but as an action game that’s about all we can really expect from a title that wants to tell a spin a narrow tale.

Last year the clear winner was NHL 2K7 when it came to online play. This year the playing field is definitely more even – it didn’t matter what game I put in I always had fun while playing over Live. However, having some friends over to play, the choice was always NHL 08.

Last year the clear winner was NHL 2K7 when it came to online play. This year the playing field is definitely more even – it didn’t matter what game I put in I always had fun while playing over Live. However, having some friends over to play, the choice was always NHL 08.

But as far as action games go, Stranglehold is about as flashy as they come, with enough slick gunplay to keep fans of the genre glued to their seats and having fun, even if they skip multiplayer altogether.

Very engaging missions with excellent use of the environment in strategizing the method of securing victory combine with strong online gameplay for a WWII shooter worthy of the honorable mettle of the 82nd Airborne.

All in all, Medal of Honor: Airborne brings a sense of authenticity and realism with a tinge of the arcade to a simulation of a daring period in American military history.

It may have the flashiest graphics, it may present all sorts of new gameplay innovations, and it may have an engrossing story, but without accessible and reliable controls… you don’t have a game that’ll keep you coming back for the pure enjoyment of it.

Blue Dragon is a harmless, lighthearted role-playing game at its core with too many cutscenes but with some really great strategic battles.

All in all, Dynasty Warriors: Gundam was a lot of fun to play, not a particularly deep game with extensive replay value, but fun nonetheless.

There’ some new golfers, courses and a few new features, but Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08 isn’t much different than its predecessor.

On the Wii, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08 hasn’t completely gotten into the swing of things provided by its Xbox 360 counterpart: namely, online play and precision swinging and putting.

You should play Metroid Prime 3: Corruption to experince one of the best games available on Wii and one of the top games 2007 has produced (to date).

Two Worlds is a game that will surely appeal to RPG fans, but even fans of the genre will be irritated by the countless problems with the game.

Battlefront are an admirable group whose games all feel like labors of love, and you can feel developers’ blood, sweat and tears all through Combat Mission: Shock Force.

BioShock has more cool elements than any ten other FPSs combined. I would say there is more variation in two play-throughs of BioShock than there is between most FPSs and their sequels.

It’s anecdotal, I know, but since I received Brain Age 2 I have played it nearly every day in my attempts to work my Brain Age to the ideal “20” – it’s been an uphill climb though it’s nice not to see “80” show up on a regular basis.

If it’s not your thing and you are looking for an entrance into that world, this one might be a bit of a steep curve for you. If you’re a seasoned player however, the fact that this game so closely follows the original rules will appeal to you greatly and definitely add a couple of points to my score.

Even though Fatal Fury was never as well regarded as Street Fighter II, they're still excellent games.

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 doesn’t have the total package that Madden NFL 08 on the Xbox 360 brings, but nonetheless the Wii version of the only NFL football videogame around certainly succeeds in giving Wii gamers an excellent football game.

Much like any good party, Boogie ends much too soon while the fun’s still going on.

In a way, Attack on Pearl Harbor succeeds in doing what the much more lauded Battlestations Midway failed to do last year, provide an arcadish Pacific air war that’s both fun (which Battlestations is) and replayable (which Battlestations is . . . not so much). Attack at Pearl Harbor’s AI is reasonably good, if a tad predictable.

If you want a portable game with a nice amount of action that also makes you think a bit, you would do well to try this game.

All of the above adds up to a game that is fun, with enough depth to the action and strategy to keep Mario Strikers Charged in regular rotation, particularly when I need a game to cleanse the palette during and after the 4th Quarter.

For the NASCAR fans looking for the chance to pursue The Chase on their Xbox 360, stock car racing doesn't get any better than NASCAR 08.

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.

So while the grading is still off, and the song selection is still scant, PaRappa has so much charm in its songs that it's still worthwhile all of these years later, whether you're revisiting it or playing it for the first time.

For its genre, Project Sylpheed: Arc of Deception is a decent game. You just have to wonder if this style of game went the way of the TRS-80 and Sega CD – dead but fondly remembered.

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.