Puzzle Agent 2 is by no means perfect but it does improve on the first Puzzle Agent and demonstrates the potential of the series.

Still, this is a damn fun title if you're interested in a deep action-RPG, especially if you expected very little after the wildly strange, often severely disappointing first game. And if you can get past the rough parts, it's exciting and addictive in all the ways you probably expect out of a good European RPG.

Still, this is a damn fun title if you're interested in a deep action-RPG, especially if you expected very little after the wildly strange, often severely disappointing first game. And if you can get past the rough parts, it's exciting and addictive in all the ways you probably expect out of a good European RPG.

I'll say it right now: if you're considering buying Homefront today, it needs to be for the multiplayer. The campaign should only serve as a small distraction that you might want to goof around in if you're bored and have already gotten your money's worth out of the multiplayer.

Even with its technical and gameplay-related issues, Just Cause's unrealistic, arcade feel still winds up being loads of fun once you start getting creative with the game's stunt system and fiddling with some of the more hilarious options.

Dead Space 2 is a solid game and in many ways an improvement over the first Dead Space. The problem is, having traded up from small scale survival horror to full-blown action blockbuster, the game and the franchise, lose something.

I'll say it right now: if you're considering buying Homefront today, it needs to be for the multiplayer. The campaign should only serve as a small distraction that you might want to goof around in if you're bored and have already gotten your money's worth out of the multiplayer.

I was skeptical about why I'd really want to play anything like a PS2-era action platformer here in 2013, but spending even just half an hour in this game made me a believer, and there's much, much more fun to be had beyond that. Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time may not innovate in bringing the genre forward, but there's still a ton of merit in bringing to market a polished, charming game with colorful graphics and inventive characters and levels.

I'll say it right now: if you're considering buying Homefront today, it needs to be for the multiplayer. The campaign should only serve as a small distraction that you might want to goof around in if you're bored and have already gotten your money's worth out of the multiplayer.

Despite a couple of strange mechanical issues and a handful of bugs, Darksiders is a significant accomplishment, even for a well-established company. For a new one like Vigil to pull it off is impressive indeed.

I think the only unfortunate thing here is that many of the gamers that would enjoy Hard Reset - old Quake veterans setting up impromptu LAN parties in their college dorms in the late '90s - have since "grown up", gotten married, and are funneling all of their money towards their kids rather than their gaming PCs.

The worst part about Vanquish is that it feels like the atmosphere and blend of action has somehow been underused or not capitalized on, mostly because there's just a single player campaign and some challenge rooms that I felt woefully under-skilled to even try and seriously tackle.

So let's just end by saying that for what it is and what it costs, Crimson Alliance offers some good-looking, undemanding fun and with its class-specific gameplay and multiplayer modes, a respectable amount of replayability.

It's a solid add-on, especially if you don't care for the engineer and would just rather have solid FPS gunplay over the high-tech gadgets. It's not perfect, but the launch did go smoothly and it's a blast to play.

For its time, it's not the best one (I'll leave that honor to Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 back from 2000), but it's still a lot of fun - as long as pro players don't mind how easy it'll be for them, nor if the newbies don't mind how hard it is for them.

Those who see past the blocky graphics to bring out the fun of Minecraft, especially with their friends, will find that this game is well worth the money.

Overall, Guitar Hero 3 is a mixed bag. While it is a lot more of the same from the past, it also has some issues. The battle modes can be slogged through, but do get annoying quite often. The ramping up in difficulty may turn some players off too.

Black Ops does well, mostly due to the sheer amount of exciting and fun multiplayer content, but I've got some serious concerns over where Call of Duty is headed.

The game's a blast just like it was on the home consoles, and while the graphics will make you think you have glaucoma and other parts had to be removed to get everything else to fit, it's an acceptable trade-off to be able to sink in an arm-in guillotine choke on Brock Lesnar when you're waiting for your special ladyfriend at the grocery store.

For everyone, it's a great deal—for $20 you not only get hours of great entertainment, you get your own little piece of video gaming history.

However, if you enjoy building your team more in Franchise mode than you do actually playing the games, give NFL Head Coach a shot – the game definitely has a lot to offer despite some shortcomings.

Max Payne 3 contains a lot of wonderful, pretty moments and there is often a good chunk of substance there, but a few relatively small mistakes and technical issues have dragged it down a bit

Sure, Brain Age 2 may be more of the same, but if the formula worked the first time, there isn't much reason to change it.

As well-built as Singularity is, it does follow a lot of the hallmarks of your standard six-to-eight-hour FPS, which may feel just a little too familiar for today's jaded gamer.

With some new social features, online play, or even some adjustments that more closely tie in the arrangement of enemies with the pace of the music, Beat Hazard's value could ascend well beyond the $10 asking price.

A game that can just as easily be played all day or for only an hour, is a solid, if somewhat safe addition to the franchise.

I think this game could have used a few more months in development to tighten up the campaign and make it more fun, but at the very least I've found the multiplayer to be very entertaining.

While DJ Hero accomplishes a lot in its first iteration, it's difficult to ignore all the opportunities the developers are missing.

Following the first game's successful expansion of the universe, TFU2's narrative direction is a Death Star-sized let down. Thankfully, its polished gameplay generally overshadows this flaw.

The immense quality of the track selection in DJ Hero 2 gets you by with a pretty solid score this year, FreeStyle and Activision, but that isn't going to last forever.

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.

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.

I'll recommend Pinnacle Station to anyone who's been through the game at least once or twice and just wants to eke out a bit more fun before the sequel hits, but completionists or those who didn't fall entirely in love with Mass Effect can safely skip it.

With its clever combination of stories and brainteasers, The Diabolical Box has every indication of being merely the second in a potentially endless series of entertaining Professor Layton titles.

This sequel doesn't innovate in as many ways as it probably should have, but it does still wind up executing a pretty decent formula that serves up more of the same - plus just a little bit extra.

Despite a few small issues and the disappointment at the lack of multiplayer of any kind, I still found Waves to be a highly entertaining twin-stick shooter with some really interesting rules to keep the formula fresh.

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.

The immense quality of the track selection in DJ Hero 2 gets you by with a pretty solid score this year, FreeStyle and Activision, but that isn't going to last forever.

Ravaged is far from perfect, but it certainly has its moments, and those are easily worth the price of admission.

As an experience, it might go down as a near-cult classic, sometimes mentioned in the same breath as Shadow of the Colossus or Beyond Good and Evil, but I doubt many people would put Enslaved on the same level.

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.

For the most part, The City That Dares Not Sleep is entertaining and fun. The only down side is that in comparison to the previous episodes in the series, it feels a bit shallow and short.

As much as progress NetherRealm has made - and improving on MK9 was a difficult feat which I believe they succeeded in doing - the problem is that the face of fighting games has changed even just in the last year and a half that I'm not sure Injustice is a comparative step forwards when you look at everything else.

The racing's solid, but the AI needs work and the lack of internet play is inexcusable.

If you're into the idea of experimental "games" pushing the boundaries of the medium, you might like Dear Esther, but if you're looking for a detailed story of Event A causing Event B which then naturally led to Event C, then this is not for you.

Fight Night Champion may be the best boxing game I've played, but with competition from all sides in this rekindled fighting genre, this franchise is starting to look and feel a little like the sport it represents: increasingly outdated and out of style.

Deadly Premonition, while lacking in the aesthetic aspect, is a surprisingly entertaining game.

Considering there have been so few western action games over the last dozen years or so, anyone who's a fan of this style owes it to themselves to at least give Call of Juarez a shot.

While I'm mildly disappointed in the linear and rather limited single player mode here in Soul Calibur V, the simple fact that Namco caught up to Capcom's feature sets in the online department is a pretty big deal. I'm far from a pro player, but I do think that SCV offers fast, offense-oriented action without the ridiculously frenetic pace and utter chaos of the Marvel vs. Capcom series.

Sure, Shank 2 falls apart here and there, but it's minor compared to the excitement that this game brings, and the reasonable $10 price tag (on all platforms) makes this a good value, too.

Not only does it do a stellar job of walking new players through what for them could be some overly complex mechanics, it pulls them through the game with an interesting storyline and a satisfying reward system.

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.

If you've had issues in the past with the balance in Battlefield 3's larger, more open maps, I don't expect that anything added in Armored Kill will solve anything for you. But if you were happy with it and still play BF3 to this day, then just suck it up and get Premium, because DICE is delivering some great action with these addons, and the new unlocks, vehicles, and weapons included in each of their DLC packs means these are a lot more than just map packs, like you might be getting used to with military-themed FPS games now. Armored Kill doesn't try to vastly expand the scope of Battlefield 3, but it does add more of the exact kind of action that other shooters out there are incapable of giving us.

Boom Blox is a fun game. It's probably one of the better Wii games out there right now for gaming parties with your casual-gaming friends.

Quantum Conundrum won't live on in memes and in gaming history quite like that, but if you're in the mood for a solid, entertaining puzzle-action romp, it's hard to go wrong with this game.

Supreme Commander 2 is the best game GPG has released in the last couple of years, but for us fans of Chris Taylor's best releases, it's just not quite enough.

I'd love to tell you that Namco has breathed a ton of new life into this ailing franchise with TTT2, but it's just not really the case. It's still a fantastic fighting game that will sell plenty of copies to the series' fans, but it's not a fantastic choice to start with if you're looking to get into fighting games.

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.

Body and Brain Connection is an ambitious idea and definitely fills a niche for Xbox Kinect.

If you can get past the out-of-combat menu system and are willing to learn the D&D rules (or already know them), D&D Tactics comes highly recommended. While the graphics may not be the best, this game provides some really fun tactical battles – some of the best I've seen in awhile.

Ultimate Mortal Kombat is definitely a worthy pickup for any fan of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3.

For a first effort and a brand-new IP, Phoenix Online Studios has done an admirable job. Although in places Cognition's graphics are little rough and the writing's a little unnatural, it offers us an adult-level adventure game full of interesting mechanics, a professional voice cast, great music and a compelling heroine. After playing the first Erica Reed episode, I have no doubt there will be future ones and no doubt that through them, Phoenix Online will iron out the remaining kinks and create for us a truly memorable adventure series.

It's hard to believe, but by doing something as simple as giving players something specific to work toward, Maxis has taken gameplay that had become as stale as three day old pumpernickel and made it surprisingly fresh.

So the classics have been resurrected in one nice package, and while it's not a total home run, it'll scratch that itch you might've been feeling for something - anything - like the original Tony Hawk games.

You get quite a bit for the money, too, as the campaign is quite long, and the wealth of features, gameplay modes (including deathmatch-type play for those who desperately need it for some reason) and configuration options make this one of the most raw, brutal, and unapologetically fun PC FPS experiences you'll have had in quite a while.

As mutliplayer shooters go, it's hard to go wrong with Section 8: Prejudice, and while this game still won't live up to the Tribes name - turns out that there's nothing out there that can do that just yet - you'll still find a damn fine online shooter with plenty of depth, all in a low-cost package.

If you're looking for the video game equivalent of War and Peace, look elsewhere; if you're looking for a few hours of unapologetically over the top, gross-out-heavy escapism, Splatterhouse is just the ticket.

Even though there's almost a complete lack of strategy required to race, some wonky visuals on the console editions, and a conspicuous lack of split-screen play, I can still offer a pretty hearty recommendation for nail'd.

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.

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.

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.

Moon is a well-made 3D action/adventure game which is something the DS could definitely use more of.

Dragon Age II is a fine RPG, but it lacks the kind of lofty ambition that has made BioWare famous. All I can hope for is that a good two or three years is spent on the next game, and that it comes out swinging with a much more hard-hitting story.

Skate 2 does a good job of adding new features and moves while trying to innovate the style and keep everything fun, but there's still a few things missing that could have made it a classic.

Hotline Miami is difficult and violent, but it's not aggravating when you lose, and it's very rewarding when you win.

Virtua Fighter 5's greatest strength is the depth of its incredible fighting. Unfortunately, the lack of online features and not-that-impressive graphics make this one only really worth it if you've already got a PS3 and love fighting games.

The lively graphics, the varied feel for each level, and the gameplay was enough to hold my interest levels and I would imagine keep other people, particular the younger generation interested in continuing as well.

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.

For every great idea, like low-penalty deaths that don’t force you to replay sections, there’s equally flawed ones, like the lush, alternate-reality cyberspace you occasionally visit for light puzzling, that would’ve best been left on the cutting room floor.

For those who love Halo and mostly play online, all I can say is that you should pick up Halo 4 as soon as possible, because it's got everything that makes this series' online play so entertaining. For the rest, I wouldn't worry about rushing out to pick it up on release day, but do check it out when it's convenient.

Skyrim was such a wonderful game, and it was disappointing to see something as half-baked as Dawnguard serve as the only example of what Bethesda could offer for post-release support for this game. Dragonborn, however, is truly worthy of the Elder Scrolls name - even if it doesn't have characters casually pulling actual Elder Scrolls out of their back pockets and buying or selling them for a few thousand gold - as it adds the kind of large, epic feel you should be experiencing when playing an open-world RPG.

With a much improved frame rate and new gameplay modes, the racing and action are more interesting and fun.

Anyway, even with its flaws, The Wise Monkey offers some good old-fashioned adventure game entertainment and promises more to come. Fortunately for us, the Cognition series' compelling heroine and an even more compelling story arc do two important things: make it possible to overlook the game's graphics, dialog and puzzle design hiccups and ensures that I for one, will see it through to the end.

There are a ton of new features as well as dozens of little changes that tweak the formula further and get that much closer to perfecting everything the SvR series has tried to do over the years.

While the original F.E.A.R. mostly set its gunfights amidst boring office buildings and warehouses, this third game has done a much better job of giving us a wider range of environments to fight in, with at least less of a jarring difference in tone whenever it becomes obvious a horror bit is about to start.

Ultimately, your level of enjoyment depends on whether you define an expansion by its item catalog or by its gameplay mechanics.

Kingdoms of Amalur is good, but it offers an uneven experience. There's a wealth of exciting combat and unique RPG options, but it takes place with characters that are largely forgettable in a world that just isn't terribly interesting.

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.

It doesn't give hardcore PC gamers every little feature they want, and that might be enough to sink the game entirely in many people's eyes, but Crysis 2 is still one of the biggest and most ambitious PC shooter releases in quite a while and it should prove to be well worth the purchase for most.

If you get some good players together in a house to just play, that's where Cross Tekken (as I've heard it called more than a few times) does its best. If you're an online warrior, stick with what you've got and wait to see what Capcom does with its online issues.

It's certainly the best Lumines since the first, but I can't help but be disappointed that one of the PSP's most iconic games is merely good, but not great, on Sony's newest portable.

All in all, pinball is a pastime that probably doesn't make a lot of sense to gamers who never got their hands on a real pinball table - and playing a video game based on it will definitely seem pointless for gamers who never stepped into an arcade at all.

It's still a fantastic game that follows in the footsteps of great Russian-style FPS games before it, and the added polish, fantastic visuals, and supernatural story elements help keep things fresh.

Either way, Defiance gives off a bad first impression, but it still holds up well on its own with continued play.

Even though there's almost a complete lack of strategy required to race, some wonky visuals on the console editions, and a conspicuous lack of split-screen play, I can still offer a pretty hearty recommendation for nail'd.

If you’re the patient type, MotoGP has a lot to offer, especially if you like the idea of hurtling down a straightaway at insane speeds in a two-wheeled deathmobile from the comfort of your couch. Just be prepared to grind to see your work bear fruit and get used to the idea of a pretty straightforward approach.

The combat system, while seemingly simple on the outside, is actually pretty deep.

All in all, Project 8 looks good but lacks any real innovations in the controls, progression through the story or overall style of gameplay.