While this one doesn't quite reach some of the stylistic and gameplay-oriented heights of Sands of Time a few years back, this re-imagined Prince of Persia delivers great thrills and plenty of accessibility inside a very pretty package.

Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom is a polished and entertaining action adventure.

Does Firaxis' re-imagined XCOM perfectly bring back the tactics and excitement of the MicroProse original? Not exactly, but they've still made an excellent tactical game that works just as well on all three platforms.

Microbot is one of the most creative "space" shooters seen in a while.

If you're sick of WoW but don't mind a game that doesn't fully reinvent the grinding wheel, this is most definitely worth a shot. If you're a KOTOR fan who doesn't care for MMOs but wants to see a continuation of the story, you'll find quite a bit of it here with plenty of references to the original game's plot and characters - but be aware that it's not nearly as easy to play this game solo-only as you might like.

Still, it's immense fun for two players, and the game is easy enough for anyone to pick up and get immersed in. If you like D&D games and are up for some monster killing action, this is your game.

Whether you began busting up baddies as Ratchet on the PS2, or this is your first go-round with the lovable Lombax, you'll find QfB is one of the best titles to ever trek down the PSN path.

Even if you dislike the poker, this game is probably still worth it just for the general humor you'll get, and it helps that Telltale can keep nearly anyone laughing and coming back repeatedly.

If you're looking for a game that will stick with you-and maybe even pop up in your nightmares- LIMBO is waiting to consume you.

Still, as flawed and frustrating as this game can be, Ubisoft has brought us one of the most ambitious, entertaining, and expertly-built games of 2012. Assassin's Creed 3 is overbearing and sometimes just a little too much to handle, but after you play it, you'll see why it's worth all the trouble.

Despite some problems, Battlefield 3 delivers right where it counts: online play. The single player mode looks great but is rather limited, and the competitive multiplayer might be a bit buggy and doesn't pull in all of the best features of every past Battlefield game, but it still lives up to the hype - and for those that were disappointed in the beta, it might even exceed the hype - and gives us a wonderful online experience that is unlike any other in the FPS world.

What's more important is that Brutal Legend is a ton of fun to play and fiercely stakes its claim as one of the most unique, most ambitious titles on the market today.

Skylanders: Swap Force is a somewhat-fresh take on the franchise with a really satisfying new element of mixing and matching character halves, but let's not pretend that it's going to take the series' fans by surprise.

This is one of a few rare killer apps on Sony's portable console, and truly one of the best fighting games ever made on any portable platform.

These relatively minor issues make Forza Motorsport 4 narrowly miss the bullseye, but this is still the best racing game released this year.

Far Cry 3 gets so many things right about why we play first person shooters, that I really am having a hard time knocking it too much for the few things it gets wrong.

X-Men Legends brings plenty of new features and fun to the action-RPG genre with AI buddies to fight beside, good four-player cooperative action, and plenty of new powers and extras to dig through.

Despite the limitations, this is probably the best DLC addon for Fallout period.

BF1942 is an impressive game that's great fun in multiplayer.

With impressive visuals, fantastic online and social functionality, and heart-pounding chases and races at excessive speeds, this is 2010's arcade racer to beat.

If you're looking to blow up city blocks with a rocket launcher, Mafia II may not be your cup of cappuccino. However, if, like me, you're hoping HBO's upcoming Boardwalk Empire fills the gaping Soprano-less void in your life, Mafia II's ready to fit you for a nice pair of cement shoes.

If you're looking to blow up city blocks with a rocket launcher, Mafia II may not be your cup of cappuccino. However, if, like me, you're hoping HBO's upcoming Boardwalk Empire fills the gaping Soprano-less void in your life, Mafia II's ready to fit you for a nice pair of cement shoes.

These are very difficult games to make, almost to the point that calling any freshly-launched MMO "not an instant failure" has become high praise. So, on that note, I can confidently say that RIFT is not an instant failure, and that's already a huge head start over many of the MMOs that came before it.

With a hugely expanded perk system, new traits you can use to give your character both an advantage and a disadvantage, warring factions to join or make enemies out of, plenty of new features to dig into, and better dialogue, Fallout: New Vegas is better than Fallout 3 in many ways.

With a well-thought-out mythos, a mildly original take on the zombie survival game that relies more on superb execution and storytelling than innovative mechanics, acting that's so good we actually see character development happen without even words being spoken, and Naughty Dog's impressive engine and top-notch production values, it all comes together to make for a wonderful reminder that not all big-budget action games need to be measured in headshots-per-minute.

The gameplay is addictive as ever and the Indy makeover oozes with style.

But this one is a blast to play, and so I give it a hearty recommendation despite having been skeptical all along about the quality of another Treyarch WW2 game.

With key changes to its art style, technology, gameplay, skills, and classes, Diablo III has revitalized the isometric action-RPG and made this classic genre fresh and cool all over again.

All in all, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit is an admirable return to form on a franchise that I had felt lost its way since NFS Most Wanted was released five years ago.

Irrational Games' SWAT 4 delivers an interesting first person shooter experience that rewards superior tactics and patience above all else.

EA has put together a great effort in this revival of SSX, one that's not only worthy of the name but also brings the game to new heights (literally and figuratively) in quite a few ways.

Sure, it's all here, but we've seen it before. BioShock 2 manages to pull through with superior action, though, and despite its problems, it still makes for a damn great game.

With clever puzzle design, inspired graphics and laugh-out-loud dialog, it's head-and-shoulders above the majority of adventure titles and is a shoe-in for any adventure fan's list of most-loved games.

Complementing the dynamic gameplay is a twisty story that will test your psyche as much as your trigger finger, terrific voice work-including another wicked good performance from Mike Patton as the Darkness-and a stunning graphic novel-inspired art style brimming with rich detail and expert use of light and shadows.

Mass Effect 2 is one of the best games made in recent years, but it's at least partially because it was built on top of a solid foundation two years before, and this new target audience only gets to scratch the surface of that foundation before being thrust into a war with the Collectors.

Despite a few complaints about the in-game graphics quality, the full Burnout experience has really made it to the PSP.

For anyone who isn't immediately enchanted by its look and style, even ten bucks might be a bit of a stretch, but I still find it exceedingly difficult not to wholeheartedly recommend LIMBO to fans of indie games.

Other than a couple of minor issues and unavoidable things you'll have to get used to when doing competitive gaming on the Vita, SFxT really is a fun and fair game that's plenty fast, but not so frantic or silly that you get lost with a half-dozen characters flying around on-screen.

I'm sure those who still bow at the Deus Ex altar will find faults, but based on my experience with all three entries in the series, Human Revolution is its best, striking the sweet spot between retaining the franchise's spirit and evolving its gameplay to contemporary standards.

I'm sure those who still bow at the Deus Ex altar will find faults, but based on my experience with all three entries in the series, Human Revolution is its best, striking the sweet spot between retaining the franchise's spirit and evolving its gameplay to contemporary standards.

Transformers: Fall of Cybertron won't likely garner many Game of the Year awards since it just slightly misses the mark on a few key points, but what it does bring is some serious passion for a great property. What's important this time around is that Activision allowed High Moon to see that through with a big budget and the time needed to polish things up.

I could only think of one way to share how I feel about it -- mix happiness, cheerfulness, smiles and a heaping spoon of sugar and you have LocoRoco.

All that said, RAGE still offers a ridiculously fun FPS adventure that is exhilarating, satisfying, and capable of living up to the id Software name in nearly everything that it does.

All that said, RAGE still offers a ridiculously fun FPS adventure that is exhilarating, satisfying, and capable of living up to the id Software name in nearly everything that it does.

Square Enix and United Front Games pulled Sleeping Dogs from the brink of death, and what surprised me is just how good it turned out to be.

Thankfully, a year ago the Secret of Monkey Island Special Edition reassured us that our fortune-hunting flashbacks were in good hands and now Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge Special Edition sends any fears we might have had left straight to Davey Jones' locker.

While Red Faction: Guerrilla offers a revolutionary new feature that lets you disassemble a building piece by piece in an action setting, it only relies and leans on it just enough to make it an important part of the game and not a crutch or a gimmick.

Buy this one without hesitation, especially if you haven't played it before.

As Defcon is almost entirely a multiplayer game, bots are provided but not much fun to play against. The bots have very limited strategy and are fairly easy to defeat. While one can battle a large number of bots simultaneously this challenge by numbers is less appealing than the strategic challenge one can enjoy in the multiplayer modes and hardly prepares you to compete online.

There are few games that I would attribute the word "important" to, but L.A. Noire is one of them. As long as you're not married to the idea of a balls-out action game coming from Rockstar, then you owe it to yourself to play this game.

There are few games that I would attribute the word "important" to, but L.A. Noire is one of them. As long as you're not married to the idea of a balls-out action game coming from Rockstar, then you owe it to yourself to play this game.

We also enjoy The Stanley Parable, but this isn't just a game meant to be enjoyed. I refuse to believe something like this is just meant to be something we goof around with for a couple of evenings and dumped into our hundreds-strong Steam libraries, never to be thought of again.

Better than its predecessor in pretty much every way: it's slick, polished, smart, beautiful, and most importantly, fun to play, giving you plenty of freedom and adventure with exciting combat and some excellent art and music to go along with the solid voice acting and interesting plot.

Hector Badge of Carnage: We Negotiate With Terrorists is a great little adventure that's often shocking, frequently offensive and always hilarious. Despite (or perhaps because of) its gross out moments and unabashedly low-brow humor, it's one of the most entertaining, unique adventure games most of us have seen in longer than we'd like to remember.

For ten bucks, it offers an excuse to revisit one of the year's absolute best games and kill zombies.

Overall, Cooking Mama is an oddly entertaining game.

This is an arcade revival done right, and even if my memories of the games were a little more idealized than reality, the games are still a blast to play and this is now by far the best way to play them.

With a hugely expanded perk system, new traits you can use to give your character both an advantage and a disadvantage, warring factions to join or make enemies out of, plenty of new features to dig into, and better dialogue, Fallout: New Vegas is better than Fallout 3 in many ways.

With a hugely expanded perk system, new traits you can use to give your character both an advantage and a disadvantage, warring factions to join or make enemies out of, plenty of new features to dig into, and better dialogue, Fallout: New Vegas is better than Fallout 3 in many ways.

Honest Hearts is one of the better DLC packs Bethesda has released yet, and it comes down to the combination of an interesting landscape and original story along with unique RPG choices, then layering the signature Fallout brand (at least, since Bethesda took over) of slightly off-kilter, but still intensely entertaining FPS combat on top.

Whether you're looking to go it alone, check out Halo 3's full suite of multiplayer options, or just see how long you and your buddies can keep the Grim Reaper at bay in Firefight, ODST has something for everyone.

It essentially puts a PS3/360 game in the palm of our hands.

WWE '12 is the best fan-service game in the business right now, and I think the rest of the game development world could learn something from such a pure, wholesome dedication to giving fans what they want.

If you're craving the kind of expertly crafted platforming only Nintendo seems to able to produce, as well as one of the year's best Wii offerings, you'll find DKCR as appealing as a ripe banana.

If you've never played the Baldur's Gate series, Planescape: Torment, or Icewind Dale, it's a fine single player game with the possibility of some very engaging multiplayer action.

There were some issues to be found here and there, but most of these unscripted bits of broken action make the game better and funnier - even if they are bugs - and make the whole thing an intensely amusing, high-octane action game that makes it seem like the whole engine's barely holding up, but it's generally doing just fine.

Couple the pyro-firing controls with diversified addictive gameplay and some truly engaging art direction, oh, and a $20 price tag, and you’ve got a DS experience that's more fun than lighting illegal fireworks on the Fourth.

Geometry Wars started out as a bonus mini-game inside Bizarre Creations' last flagship title Project Gotham Racing 2 - and while this new version has much improved graphics, you can still play the classic version as well.

DiRT 3 is not a perfect game and a couple of patches will likely fix my biggest issues with the PC port, but none of the problems will really matter too much for rally fans that have been disappointed in the last few years' worth of rally game releases.

Just Cause 2 is an amazingly fun game, and while it's not the most well-rounded package, it delivers massive amounts of entertainment in ways that no one's really quite done before.

DiRT 3 is not a perfect game and a couple of patches will likely fix my biggest issues with the PC port, but none of the problems will really matter too much for rally fans that have been disappointed in the last few years' worth of rally game releases.

Despite a few issues, this one's easily a must-have for PC gamers and DX fans, so get over to Steam and put your money down.

UFC Undisputed 3 is an all-around major improvement over previous games in the series.

Even with its problems, Mafia was a joy to play, and I really hope we see more games that expand on the Grand Theft Auto formula. But if you are going to do a GTA3-alike game, a unique setting as well as a few major gameplay additions are absolute musts. Luckily, Mafia delivers in those areas.

There's nothing really like Forza Horizon out there right now, as the wide-open world to explore and solid handling of the Forza franchise come together beautifully. Yes, Playground and Turn 10 had to compromise on what feels like a rather hefty list of features and selling points in order to make Horizon a reality on Xbox 360, but the relatively few new things this game includes add up to a massive impact on how it's played and enjoyed.

Dead Rising is not for everyone, as it does include tons of violence and gore, but the sheer number of possibilities in this game make it a wonderful addition to almost any Xbox 360 owner's library.

LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 is the most fun you'll have with a LEGO game.

The various game modes, customizability of Bomberman and the ability to play both online or offline with friends makes for a package that, at the price, can't be beat.

Any fan of the genre owes it to themselves to give Ni no Kuni a try, but I won't go so far as to guarantee that you'll love this game even if you've hated past JRPGs.

The story is excellent and original, and the game can take you dozens of hours to complete depending on how much you dig into the side quests. My original skepticism about the viability of a game like The Witcher 2 on consoles has been blown away, but of course it's up to the Xbox 360 gamers out there to make it a success.

Next to the countless genre clones in the 360 library, Bully: Scholarship Edition stands at the head of the class, easily earning an A for originality.

As much as I've said over the last year-plus that I actually don't mind the ending to Mass Effect 3, that I found it a bit iffy but not nearly as rage-inducing as it seems the vast majority of players thought it was, maybe the Citadel DLC, which jam-packs five-plus hours of maximum entertainment into its $15 package, is just a better way to end the story.

Street Fighter IV was a slower, more deliberate project with a silly streak in its art and design, and I wonder whether we will ever see something closer to SFIII's style come in a future game - but this time rendered in 3D, of course. I hope so, because while I wasn't really looking forwards to a new port of a decade-plus-old game, even just a couple of hours with Online Edition has reminded me just how polished and brilliant Capcom's final 2D opus really was.

It still needs some work, but I'm very impressed with the end result. If you've got a powerful PC and a desire to bring some real tactics and organization to your team-based FPS fighting, then this game is a must-try. And with no material cost to get started, all you have to lose is the time it takes to download, patch, and give it a shot.

That said, if you're a fan of this franchise who plans on buying the sequel, there's plenty here to sink your chainsaw-outfitted kayak paddle into. And, at just five bucks, the dead zombie to dollar ratio can't be beat, especially in this economy.

Not many games in this genre are released with a $20 price tag, so some gamers out there might not really know how to deal with a game that is a little light on the content but much lighter on the price.

But if you do make the plunge, you will know where that money went, as MK on Vita is a damn good example of how future ports to Sony's handheld should go: dial back the eye candy if you need to, but do not compromise your gameplay or remove features just because it's hard to make them work on a mobile system.

I'll probably be able to get to the end-game a little quicker this time now that I know how to play, but suffice it to say that if you can get into its brand of action and strategy, SPAZ is easily worth the $15 that MinMax Games are charging.

Even if you're not a huge comic book or Spider-Man fan, you could do a hell of a lot worse than to grab Shattered Dimensions and play through it before the "real" fall season of game releases starts.

While the first game offered a frustrating gaming experience that frankly defeated many gamers, DII has solved all of the previous reasons for criticism, providing a true horror gaming experience unmarred by mechanical flubs.

Even if you're not a huge comic book or Spider-Man fan, you could do a hell of a lot worse than to grab Shattered Dimensions and play through it before the "real" fall season of game releases starts.

Overall, I find the base game to be priced rather attractively, and right now a good bargain is hard to find on Vita - period

If I was just reviewing Journey itself, I'd give it a 10 out of 10, but I'm reviewing this whole package, priced at twice the cost of the PSN version of the game that's in big letters on the box cover. If you've already played thatgamecompany's previous two games, then this isn't the best value.

The themed levels are fun, the new game modes add a lot to an already complete franchise and the multiplayer mode is one of the best I've ever seen in a puzzle game.

Even if you're getting a little sick of the WW2 shooter genre, I'd suggest you give it a shot, as its gameplay is the right mix of fun and realism and the multiplayer modes are plenty of fun.

If you're a PS3 owner who's been chomping at the bit for this one, or even a 360 owner craving more demon-carving action, your day has come—savor it like a fresh kill.

While this one doesn't quite reach some of the stylistic and gameplay-oriented heights of Sands of Time a few years back, this re-imagined Prince of Persia delivers great thrills and plenty of accessibility inside a very pretty package.

Pure FPS fans may not be too excited and there are a few minor problems, but this is a rare gem that anyone looking for a more cerebral action game should be paying serious attention to. And by "paying serious attention", I mean that you should buy it.