The clashing of weapons, the whooshing and swooshing of spells, the grunts and roars of monsters, wind passing through a valley, the sound of crashing waves on the shore, they all bring the game to life.

Maybe Bloodmoon could have been down as a free, or low cost, download, but the added value of the werewolf alone make the twenty dollar cost seem like a bargain.

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.

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.

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.

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.

If you love shoot'em ups, or even just love great games, go out and buy Ikaruga now.

Strangely, the game that I've played lately that Thief: Deadly Shadows reminds me of most is the cell-phone version of "Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow."

The steep level curve remains the biggest hurdle for Borderlands players, as being even three levels below an enemy will result in mismatched battles that usually won’t end in your favor. For players still under 30 and have yet to complete the main mission, it would be best to hold off on the DLC.

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.

Maxis still did a great job of mapping all the PC commands to the GameCube controller.

You're not going to find a better beat 'em up, action game leading up to Christmas than The Warriors. The language is a little salty, but it has so much going for it – especially the fact it doesn't descend into repetitiveness and has an interesting story to tell – that it would be shame if you missed it.

Sandbox destruction at its finest, Red Faction: Guerrilla will surely satisfy action gamers because many of the constrictions we’ve all become used to – that waist-high wall that stops you dead – are blown up.

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.

A spectacular game.

Picking up both and playing straight through all the campaigns is what I would prescribe for RTS gamers unimpressed by the current offerings from other studios.

From the pure amount of massive content available, I'm sure that most gamers will not run out of things to do with Underground 2.

inFamous is a type of game that doesn’t come around often enough and is easily one of this year’s strongest titles.

It was enjoyable being given this much freedom to change the rules in an FPS, but the repetitive action quickly pulls the game from a fun activity into a chore.

A few points keep it from achieving perfection, but you won’t be disappointed in the end.

If you enjoy sports-gaming league micromanagement like only EA can provide, along with amazingly solid soccer offline or online via Xbox Live, you'll get your kicks with FIFA 07.

Big kudos and thumbs-up to Camelot for an excellent save system. Even if you're in the middle of a match you can pick-up later and start playing from there (in any mode).

World at War proves to be another solid addition to the Call of Duty franchise.

This game is magic. Occasionally offensive and funny magic, but magic nonetheless.

This game got released too early. Had it been released around the holidays, and with the collection of bugs and broken quests eliminated, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it as a great gift for gamers. As it is, I can only say that it's beautiful but tragically flawed.

What we have here is a game that follows the norm in basic premise as to what we’ve come to expect from console strategy RPGs, but twists it just enough to play a little different and still be very fun.

It is once the main game is over that the real fun of The Movies begins.

Although Command & Conquer: Generals has many points that has made the franchise so popular over the years, it has been “vanillafied” – it’s been molded to play and appear like every other real-time strategy (RTS) game out there.