But if you're looking for fantastic action and a good scare or creep-out mixed in, then F.E.A.R.'s dingy and abandoned alleys, rooftops, and office complexes will certainly satisfy.

Treyarch did more than an admirable job porting last year's Call of Duty: World at War to the Wii, and with REFLEX they build on that success

It looks great, it plays great, and depending on how interested you are in playing all the mini-games and collecting all the stuff, you're looking at 40+ hours of fun-packed gameplay.

It still doesn't recapture the magic of the Dreamcast original, but Soul Calibur IV is still a great game with many hours of solid fighting action to offer.

Spider-Man 2 is a genuinely fun game, as it has you swing from building to building, beating up criminals and chasing Doc Ock.

Medal of Honor: Heroes delivers a lackluster WW2 experience on the PSP platform. It's got boring combat and some dull missions, but the multiplayer is definitely worth a try if you love online gaming on your PSP.

Developer High Moon Studios have done a great job with Transformers: War for Cybertron. It's not just about finally making a game worthy of the franchise, but it's about capturing the fun of the show, from back when we were kids, in a way that the recent movie-based games could never really hope to do.

It's pure KH fun, and it will immediately remind you why this most unusual clashing of worlds works so well.

Rocket Riot is highly original, despite its simplistic design and seemingly trivial action.

If you can get past the goofy presentation and dig into the massive battles, then you'll definitely consider this to be $40 well-spent.

An ideal party game. If you’re buying this Wii for a parent, grandparent or other non-gamer in your life, grab this game with it – they’ll definitely get a kick out of it.

Metro 2033 lacks some of the polish we're used to seeing in AAA FPS efforts such as Modern Warfare 2. However, considering it pretty much came out of nowhere, it stands as a decent first effort in what I hope will be a continuing franchise.

A fun experience. However, don't come into it expecting a pure platformer – there are multiple RPG elements here that can interrupt the flow a bit. The whole 3D flipping aspect, for example – it is a neat idea, but I feel it could have been better implemented.

Despite some minor flaws, Nintendo's latest take on their classic kart racing series is definitely worth checking out.

Left 4 Dead 2 contains everything that made the first game great and so much more.

The Tekken series of fighting games went a little off the deep end years ago and hasn't really improved the situation with recent revisions, but they do know how to make a slick PSP port with incredible graphics and smooth gameplay.

I really can’t recommend this game enough.

If you almost bought The Pitt but held off because $10 seemed maybe just a bit too much, then go ahead and pick up Broken Steel because it's definitely worth the cost this time.

If you’re thinking about picking up MotoGP 06, I’d highly recommend a rental first – make sure you can learn the controls and won’t get too frustrated with the game before you actually buy it.

As a whole, Arkanoid is addictive and even though it's not the only retro title Taito has released lately, for my money it's the best one.

Despite a few cracks and issues in the online play and a couple of missing features that would have improved the experience, SKATE 3 is still a fantastic sequel that really improves on the accessibility and style.

Overall, Squad Command is an excellent pickup for a strategy fan. You get a nice and difficult campaign to play through with a wide variety of weapons to rain destruction upon your enemies.

The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom is an impressive first effort by Los Angeles developer The Odd Gentlemen. Like Braid before it, it proves that great games don't require huge teams, huge budgets or huge production times.

If you’ve finally caught up on all the holiday’s big titles, and are looking to blow some MS Points, The Maw is the way to go.

Either way, this is a fine port from console to PC, one that brings everything from the original experience and fits it nicely into a PC gamer's hands. The actual game might be frustrating and tedious at times, but it's worth it if you've got the cash to pick it up.

Due to some critical flaws in the multiplayer mode, Titan Quest winds up being a blast for you and your trusted friends for at least a couple weeks if not more, but it just won't go any further than that without Iron Lore doing some serious work on the online play.

While exhibiting a blatant disregard for aesthetics and an almost cavalier attitude toward bugs, Dragon Age is saved by its epic design, exceptional narrative and incredible voice acting.

If you’re looking for a refreshing respite from the Wii’s line-up of me-too mini-game collections and other familiar fare, you should let Deadly Creatures infest your game library.

For anyone who loves STALKER, it's hard to find a reason not to pick this one up. It offers the same free-roaming first person shooter action we've seen before with its signature foreboding atmosphere and a couple of new surprises.

While it isn’t the best launch game on the system, it definitely does a good job of showing off what the Wii is about – using a unique control scheme to make a game that couldn’t really be made elsewhere.

It may not be the huge, serious undertaking we’ve generally come to expect from most Square games, but Crystal Bearers is still an entertaining and worthwhile investment (it’s also one of the prettiest Wii games yet), particularly for the more casual FF fan

If you've never played the original, then I highly recommend checking this one out, based almost entirely on the merits of the first game. If you've already escaped from Butcher Bay, though, your decision is a bit more difficult.

The shooting isn't as tight as Gears of War nor the fighting as honed as a focused brawler, but the combination of simple, satisfying mechanics coupled with quality-oozing production values shoot this one to the top of the movie-licensed heap.

In the end, this meshing of two different styles of gameplay is what makes Rune Factory a worthy pickup for previous Harvest Moon-ers.

This is a purely arcade racer, and its sense of speed isn't nearly as good as, say, Burnout Revenge. Car crashes themselves are fun, but not nearly as satisfying as a destruction-oriented racing game should be.

The ending to Viking is a pretty big disappointment, but at least the game is a ton of fun on the way there.

If you haven't played Far Cry for the Xbox already, then by all means you should pick up Far Cry Instincts: Predator. It's got a satisfying and fun single player mode, and its online play has the unique feature of being able to run both original maps and custom created ones

Overall, my recommendation of Madden 07 on the Xbox 360 is conditional – if the items I’ve presented in the above list aren’t game breakers for you, the 360 version is a very worthy heir to the Madden throne.

Gratuitous Space Battles isn't for everyone, as its brand of strategy is entirely weighted towards the setup phase - and the execution is almost completely hands-off. Still, the prospect of building your own ships and using your own unique combinations of general strategies and offensive and defensive loadouts is very compelling for anyone who is a sci-fi space battle enthusiast.

Simply put, TWEWY is not perfect, but it brims with a style, depth and richness unmatched by any other RPG on the portable platform.

The dialed down difficulty and weak story will be a deal-breaker for some, but honestly, the amazing marriage of combo-heavy combat and acrobatic web swinging, complemented by a living, breathing NYC, culminate in the most engaging Spider-Man game I’ve ever played.

If you've been looking for a good reason to re-enter Pandora and start looting and shooting again, spending ten bucks on The Secret Armory of General Knoxx is about as good a reason as you're likely to find.

What you will get is a solid story that delivers several hours of interesting dialogue and familiar FO3 action - but make sure to explore a little to dig up the rest of what this add-on has to offer.

RAD's return had a lot to live up to, and it mostly succeeds at rebooting a long-loved franchise, delivering a title fans of the original will appreciate, while introducing newcomers to an excellent action game that hopefully sees a sequel.

LEGO Star Wars II is a fun romp through the original trilogy of movies, and that crazy LEGO style really gives the whole thing a unique feel.

If you're a fan of side-scrolling fighting games, you owe it to yourself to get this. And if you're not, this might just be the game that gives you a nice, fresh start to the genre.

In all, I can say that I enjoyed Big Brain Academy and feel it is a wonderful addition to the Brain Age-style games. Nintendo has really hit on a different market than the traditional gamers.

Overall, though, Rabbids Go Home is a fun, often hilarious reboot of a franchise that desperately needed one.

When it works, it’s brilliant. And when it doesn’t, it only disappoints because you can see its brimming potential trying to breakthrough.

With a ton of match types that will be ridiculously familiar to WWE fans and many wrestlers to choose from, Smackdown vs RAW 2007 is a great first entry onto the Xbox 360.

In the end, Dead or Alive 4 is to fighting games what Halo 2 was to first person shooters.

Atari has mixed old-school dungeon hack games with modern gameplay to make D&D Heroes a pretty decent success.

Still, Sam nails exactly what it's aiming to do, which is to throw scores of enemies at you in some of the most frantic firefights you'll ever experience.

It's a decent game with some pretty fun volleyball, although only the diehard sim fans are going to keep going after the first few days of play.

Either way, it's worth picking up if you really dug the original and want more of the same, but if you had issues before, then Warhead isn't likely to address them for you.

For those that dig Shatter's depth and style, the rabbit hole goes pretty deep: it offers plenty of strategy with its vacuum system, and the variety of levels and smooth graphics, sound and music make for a great value for many gamers at only $7.99 on PSN.

For the fans that AvP was very obviously made for, however, the high production values, attention to the universe’s detail and generally smooth gameplay make it a worthy addition to the franchise.

Of course, I think THQ and Gas Powered Games probably realized early on that their fan base has been dwindling, so this seems more to be an honest effort. It's damn good, but it's just not quite enough to rekindle interest in their game.

The story won't win any awards, but you can always skip it and just get right to the meat of the game.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a classic beat-em-up in the Final Fight style, with a few of its own twists thrown in.

While you'll find that the repetitive environments and strange puzzle sections are turn-offs, there's still a fine game here in Devil May Cry 4.

A few moderately big shortcomings aside, Need for Speed: Underground is a solid racing game with an easy learning curve, arcade-like racing, online play, great graphics, and a distinct style.

Prey brings some unique storytelling and great, interesting features, but it just lacks the polish required to make this game a top-quality shooter.

Still, anyone who is a fan of Sega's biggest 16-bit franchises could do a lot worse than picking up this latest compilation.

While those who played and loved the original Conker's Bad Fur Day might scoff at the purchase of this new remake, I can still mostly recommend it due to the multiplayer mode.

The idea of a focused single player campaign in one country during World War II is interesting, but the execution could have gone better and the action is just about exactly what you'd expect.

Those who liked Deadly Alliance's general style - its fighting system, story mode, collecting Koins and unlocking Koffins - will certainly enjoy Mortal Kombat: Deception.

And maybe that's Ensemble's biggest success here: that the interface and controls, usually the worst part of a console RTS game and the one that gets talked about the most in game reviews for this genre, were the farthest thing from my mind here after a few minutes of learning them.

RoboBlitz brings action, puzzles, and physics together to make for a much better game than I was expecting, and its budget price certainly helps a lot.

Guitar Hero: World Tour has some interesting pluses - the drum kit is excellent, and there are a few gameplay perks to be found here and there. But to me the touch panel on the guitar is a bust, the mic is still wired (even though that Microsoft karaoke game Lips figured out how to do a wireless mic), and the game is rather light on content both before and after you're sick of the on-disc set of tracks.

While the game is far from perfect because of issues with movement, issues with the grappling hook and cheesy looping of knockdown animations, Lost Planet is still very fun to play through.

With some tweaks, I think that EA has a hit franchise on their hands here with skate.

Harmonix has another excellent game on their hands with Guitar Hero, but the reliance on an uncomfortable controller not only raises the game's price but it also is just sometimes too much effort to even want to play.

Longtime gamers, especially those who dug this type of game back in the day (controller-chucking fits and all), will find Prinny a breath of fresh air on the content-starved platform, even if that fresh air is pierced by your own frustration-powered F-bombs.

I really do enjoy the game, but you should definitely try out the demo and only spend the cash once you're bored with the other online mainstays on the PS3 and 360. Once you do, you'll find some genuinely good fun and action in Battlefield 1943.

Despite the lack of any real innovation and a couple of missing specific features, Capcom has put together a solid package here in Street Fighter Alpha Anthology.

The graphics are about as good as we'll likely get anytime soon on the PSP, and a pretty nice set of songs and the full range of levels are here.

Alley of the Dolls represents a still-funny but less creative chapter in the series that for some will feel more like a stepping-stone to the finale than a worthwhile chapter in itself.

On an absolute scale, Tony Hawk's American Wasteland is an incredible game.

For anyone who is looking for an old-school action FPS experience with solid production values and lots of explosions, this is your game.

Despite the lack of authentic Disney music and the lack of any sort of online play, Meteos: Disney Magic is a worthy pickup for anyone that is looking for a new puzzler, both Disney fan and non-fan alike.

Any fan of stealth games needs to pick this one up and try to look past the technical issues to the excellent gameplay and sense of style beneath.

Homecoming shows a significant improvement over the franchise’s last console outing, but there’s still work to be done.

Many of the things that made me love Morrowind so much are simply missing in Tribunal. For your dollar value, this expansion just doesn't add enough to what is already a massive, excellent game.

There needs to be a way to adjust the computer’s level of perfection to make swing mode usable outside of multiplayer games.

If you are looking for a more traditional Pac-Man game, you will not find it with Pac-Man Championship Edition. However, if you are looking for an upgrade to the classic game with some twists, Pac-Man Championship Edition is for you.

It's the perfect rental game, and the really dedicated fans will surely enjoy the purchase.

If you found great fun and challenge in past Super Monkey Ball games, then Banana Blitz will certainly keep you going for a while with its new set of puzzles and tons of stuff to do on the side.

The Getaway is a pretty decent game with a few bad design decisions but some cool driving and action.

The gameplay's neither terribly exciting nor really unique in the world of action games, and what uniqueness we get from the setting is about all it really has (other than the core story which happens to be pretty damn good).

While Star Wars: Republic Commando is a pretty solid game overall, it's entirely forgettable and will wind up in that large pile of good-but-not-great titles that LucasArts has building up recently.

Overall, MLB 2K6 is a worthy replacement to the beloved MVP MLB franchise. While there are some occasional hiccups and glitches and the fielding is off, these are all issues that can be ironed out over the next year - the game is still pretty fun to play.

Bizarre Creations has done something unique here in trying to get you to actually play through the levels of their shooter multiple times and keep having fun doing it.

Aliens, cowboys, robots, zombies (sorta), and samurais are included and do spice up the experience, but if you really want to crank up the craziness, Bethesda, we'll need some pirates and vikings, too.

Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood is just as good as the original game, and its two main characters do a great job of keeping you interested even when the action falters.

The mostly-open, Fallout-style post-apocalyptic world is really engaging and its basis in a real-life event makes it that much more interesting, but the frustrating gunplay, high difficulty, and lack of transportation can get on your nerves pretty often.

For $20, you get some fun minigames to play that will track your progress along with 100 Sudoku puzzles.

It may not perfectly recreate the whole experience and the selection of machines isn't the most well-rounded, but the action on the table is what matters most and Crave Entertainment most certainly did get that right.