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.

It won't put WoW out of business, but then again, nothing will for a long time, and that doesn't mean this isn't a great game with tons of appeal and a hopefully more mature audience

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.

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.

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

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.

This game is made entirely for people who are already fans.

In spite of the standard-fare visuals, FFA2 is a game no RPG fan should miss.

In summation, riding wolves. Huge, awesome guns. Shoot stuff and marvel at just how much Intrusion 2 makes Adobe Flash, arguably the worst gaming platform in the world, actually look good. The one major complaint I have is that the game is fairly steep at ten bucks with a rather short playtime.

When Dead Island is firing on all cylinders, it's an absolute blast to play, but sadly, this game will have people running into quite a few technical and gameplay-based frustrations before they get even a couple of hours in.

Minor gripes aside, this one's an extremely satisfying ride, especially in light of the criminal lack of survival horror titles on the Xbox 360.

However, if you are a fan—and spent as many hours as I did in Wii Sports' virtual bowling lanes—then visiting this Resort is a no-brainer.

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.

Outlast offers a lot for the $20 that the developers are asking: great visuals, a decent story, some solid scares, plenty of checkpoints, and a little bit of openness in both exploration and in dealing with the enemies that can't be fought back against.

The awesome new Gamebreaker system, revised trick system and incredible graphics make for what is arguably EA’s best next-gen sports title yet.

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.

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.

If this is your first time considering a shot at Street Fighter, grab this as a $40 retail package, and if you have SSFIV lying around, I think the fifteen bucks to get online and get competitive again is a great idea too.

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.

While Lara's adventure this time around is pretty short, the exploration elements, great visuals that the Xbox 360 can produce, and even the surprisingly interesting story all come together to make a pretty solid game anyway.

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

With hundreds of great new items, some simple but effective new features, and a dozen hours or more of gameplay (which multiplies with the new difficulty levels), any fan of the game will likely find this to be a worthy addition.

Overall, Spellforce 2 is slightly above average. It take two portions of a game that wouldn’t succeed on their own and combines them into a package that proves to be fun with a large amount of gameplay.

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.

If you haven't gotten the Season Pass yet because you're waiting to see how the first DLC turns out, then I'd say run over and get it now, because if history repeats itself on this one, I think we're in for some great new adventures from Gearbox.

It's a great experience jumping off of an exploding Titan and surviving, knowing it was your DemoPaks that blew up the reactor core.

LEGO Rock Band for the DS is ultimately a disappointment, unless you're someone who can't go ten minutes without a Rock Band fix.

Yes, Troika has delivered an action-RPG that's on par with the System Shock or Deus Ex while delving into a unique and compelling setting.

Whether you just play the missions to get through them for the story or want to beat them all with an S-ranking, there is tons of fun to be had in this game.

Overall, Indiana Jones: The Original Trilogy is cute and good for one or two laughs but is likely to bore older gamers. It's a perfect title, though, for gamers 10 and under.

In the end, Valkyrie Profile Lenneth is quite the unique RPG and well worth playing for anyone that calls themselves a fan of Japanese RPGs.

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.

Geometry Wars: Galaxies is about as good a sequel as we can get to what originally was a bonus mini-game in Project Gotham Racing and then eventually a downloadable $5 game.

Pick up Wii Fit expecting a party and you'll be disappointed, but buy it as you would any other piece of fitness equipment and you'll likely enjoy Nintendo’s innovative approach to getting in shape.

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

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.

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.

n the end, the game comes out as nothing more than average. Fans of the Metal Gear universe will want to pick this one up as will those that enjoyed the first game. If you are looking to try out the series, this is definitely the better version. If you absolutely hated the first, though, nothing here will change your mind.

Beyond that, this serves as a solid, fun-feeling sim-ish racing game with hundreds of well-modeled cars, innovative AI, and some great tracks.

Hitman: Absolution's insistence on putting Agent 47 on the run can often get in the way of what made the series so fun in the past, and the lack of a manual save system undermines the kind of goofing around and experimentation that made past games so enjoyable.

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.

It's hard to completely fault the developers for their flaws because they've clearly made some admirably bold decisions to evolve a franchise that's near and dear to so many. And while it falls a bit short, Other M works as both a Metroid game and Wii title that should please old school fans, while attracting newcomers to a series that deserves a mainstream audience.

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.

The story's specific games and challenges are not always innovative, and some can get darn right repetitive and frustrating, especially if you can't quite beat the clock. But the ability to craft mind-blowing vehicles provides an endlessly addictive experience that'll keep this title in your 360 longer than it probably has a right to be there.

While Empire at War does have an overall decent gameplay system that requires a mix of strategies, as well as a story-based campaign that can be played from the side of either the Rebels or the Empire, there's just not enough here to pull you away from the many great strategy games that are available today.

In the end, though, 2K made the right move to give casual fans a baseball game they can easily pick up and play with their friends.

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.

If you’re dead-set on getting draft classes for Madden 07 on the 360, go rent the game and play it for a weekend. Admire the pretty graphics and have fun with the gameplay that doesn’t amount to much more than a 60 dollar tech demo – it is still worth a rental just to see what could have been.

If you’re into old school games—and if you’re not, you’re probably not even reading this review—you will find yourself getting into the level design here, slowly making your way through each stage, besting all the little challenges you encounter until that proud moment you can make it all the way through to a boss encounter in one life, if you’ve been hit at all.

At $19.99, Worms Reloaded is a solid entertainment value-especially for those of us who love the smell of banana bomb in the morning.

With a reasonable $40 price tag and some solid visuals to go along, this one crosses genres nicely to appeal to both RTS fans and city management-types alike.

Although this first chapter is part of a larger storyline and of necessity ends on a cliffhanger, it functions well enough on its own to be a satisfying gaming experience.

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.

This game can definitely hang with the best of them, though, which may come as a big surprise to those who thought that Mortal Kombat was dead. MK:DA has enough for both old MK fans and more "modern" fighting game players to keep most everyone entertained for quite a while.

While Orcs Must Die! doesn't really bring forth any entirely new ideas - Sanctum on PC does the FPS-meets-tower-defense thing, too - it does give us a really fresh combination of them, and along with the fantasy setting and legitimately funny jokes and fun ways to kill orcs, this is definitely one of the better XBLA/downloadable games you can buy this year.

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.

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.

Assassin's Creed has excellent production values, a wonderful story, and tons of creativity, but it's still seriously flawed. It's certainly not a bad game, but don't expect too much out of the Creed.

Def Jam Fight for NY: The Takeover is a solid fighting game with a silly amount of moves, characters, and unlockables.

It's tough because Ultimate MvC3 is a great game and a solid improvement on the fundamentals in the original.

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

Nostalgia aside, Sonic Transformed as a kart racing game is a blast to play and it comes highly recommended, especially at the reasonable Steam price of $30 (or $80 for a four-pack).

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

It can't be stressed enough how much fans of this franchise will adore this 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.

Ninja Theory and Sony have done an admirable job making a game in the style of God of War without turning it into a shameless clone, but the guys at WETA really brought Heavenly Sword to life.

It's hard to believe, but EA has finally done a great job in taking a movie license, converting it to a fun game, and then delivering it to all the major consoles roughly in time for the movie's actual release.

This is definitely worth picking up if you aren't going to get frustrated with the controls too easily. If hard-to- get-used-to controls get on your nerves easily, though, skip this game and go play it on your 360 instead.

The somewhat disappointing result of all this is that F.E.A.R. 2 isn't different enough from the first game to surprise us, and with such a lack of innovation, even this polished horror shooter just won't get the rise out of players that the original did.

Shattered Memories is in some ways a true return to form for the series, although with recent news of Akira Yamaoka—whose music and vision has consistently defined the series—leaving Konami, it may be the last true Silent Hill game, period.

And that is where Charged really shines – the multiplayer arena. Take it online, knock some people around and have a blast.

If real-world handling and precision aren't remotely your concern, then Most Wanted should be your game of choice. And if you want realism and would rather stay on the PC, consider a more serious racing games like Project CARS, iRacing, or even last year's SHIFT 2 Unleashed.

Elite Force 2 is a solid FPS sequel that improves on the original game in all areas.

All of the Infinity Engine games are brilliant pieces of work that still stand out from the RPG pack more than a decade after their release dates, and here Overhaul Games made a perfectly competent "port" of the game that started it all. But it costs twenty bucks, and that's too much when you can get the original version with the same Tales of the Sword Coast expansion pack over at GOG for half the price - even less when it goes on sale - and a few minutes of installing mods gets you to nearly the same point.

It's quick to pick up, has considerable replayability and is a much-needed dose of mature content for the Wii. However, it's extremely short, the bosses are a cake-walk and the writing is obnoxious.

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.

The franchise is most definitely at its most complete here in '13, with a massive roster, a focus on a golden age of wrestling, and lots of visual and functional tweaks to rein in the franchise's ambition and instead start making the many modes and options a little more polished.

If you're even remotely interested in games where people shoot things, punch things, walk, run, or drive around - is that just about everything yet? - then you owe it to yourself to check out Prototype.

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.

When you’ve gotten your fill of saving our world and all those fictional ones in this season’s blockbusters, find some time to wield the powers of ancient gods in this tiny title that packs big, addictive fun.

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

I can recommend that you pick up The Missing Link if you really, really want to spend more time with Adam Jensen, but know that it's not a particularly good DLC add-on - especially for fifteen bucks.

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

Rainbow Six Vegas 2 isn't terribly exciting when played alone, but it is solid when you go online.

If this is your first time considering a shot at Street Fighter, grab this as a $40 retail package, and if you have SSFIV lying around, I think the fifteen bucks to get online and get competitive again is a great idea too.

Having had my DeathSpank: Thongs of Virtue experience so painfully truncated by the aforementioned bug, it's hard to comment fully on the game. It is possible however, to say that going by the entertaining action/RPG elements and the unparalleled humor of the game to that point, that Ron Gilbert's still "got it". Still, a bug that prevents players from finishing the game (and that as yet has no known fix) just can't be overlooked.

Its brutal, in-your-face action will make you cringe, while the creepy atmosphere will have your heart fluttering as you wonder what's around that next corner. Even the hardened veterans of the world's best horror games will find this to be a fine addition to their collection.

This PC version is better than some straight-over ports I've seen this generation, but it certainly could have benefited from a little more time spent on PC-only features.

What Reverge Labs has done with Skullgirls is prove that even an independent developer can make a slick, fun, and unique fighting game amongst the eight-figure budgets seen in the rest of the genre.

Even though it's not a one-on-one fighting game, I still think that Shaolin Monks is by far the best Mortal Kombat game to come out in many years.

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

Tabula Rasa does a lot of things right and only a few things really wrong, but I still find it tough to recommend this one except to those anti-fantasy RPG fans who feel they must be holding a gun rather than a sword in their games.

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.

If you really enjoyed and are ready to take your adventures beyond the Capital Wasteland, then is a great place to start.

The bright, crisp graphics of the Caribbean and the goofy, but lovable sense of humor exhibited throughout Tropico 4 make it instantly appealing, and the impressive depth of a people and city management sim layered on top of tried and true RTS style of play will keep you coming back.

This is probably the deepest baseball game I have ever played - the depth of the stats and things to manage are mind-boggling.

Not only has it established a winning cast of characters, and a formula for fun-packed gameplay, its latest title, Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth shows that there are still lots of ways both cast and formula can be effectively improved and expanded upon.

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.