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.

Take some time to get into Syndicate and you'll discover it's not just another shooter with a pretty Blade Runner paint job.

The fun vehicle levels, tons of weapons, gun emplacements to use, and scripted, cinematic gameplay all show just how short the single player mode is, even if it's generally really good stuff.

Yggdra Union had the potential to be a really compelling tactical game, but due to a lazy storyline, a cumbersome UI, and a brand of gameplay that excludes the player 50% of the time, it couldn't help but fall short.

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.

Despite a few issues with reluctant AI and somewhat clunky platforming, The Saboteur stylishly proves that the genre of open world action-adventure is considerably bigger than GTA.

Combine fictional missions with an unrealized paratrooper advantage, and Medal of Honor: Airborne simply doesn't deliver.

With LEGO Pirates, Traveler's Tales didn't really intend to create a pitch-perfect reproduction of the tone and feel of the movies, but even in their crazy cartoon style, you might be surprised at just how much they got right. Adventure gaming fans now have plenty of stuff to choose from, especially with TellTale and Double Fine making pure gold on a regular basis, but I think that the LEGO games are a great choice too, and Pirates might possibly be their best one yet.

GUN Showdown is a great game that just doesn't quite fit onto the tiny PSP platform.

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

With LEGO Pirates, Traveler's Tales didn't really intend to create a pitch-perfect reproduction of the tone and feel of the movies, but even in their crazy cartoon style, you might be surprised at just how much they got right. Adventure gaming fans now have plenty of stuff to choose from, especially with TellTale and Double Fine making pure gold on a regular basis, but I think that the LEGO games are a great choice too, and Pirates might possibly be their best one yet.

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.

Overall, the Metal Slug games are great, and Anthology's biggest plus is that all seven games are here. Beyond that, don't expect much.

Unleashed offers the best Star Wars yarn that involves the original characters since the first trilogy.

Vietcong: Fist Alpha is a tough expansion pack that's going to frustrate the hell out of many players, even with its many virtues.

Really, there's no way you can go wrong with this purchase, especially considering it is only 39.99 for a complete package. And at 2.50 a stage, the downloadable content really isn't all that badly priced, either.

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.

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.

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.

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

Sure, the PC version looks prettier in high-res and runs at a higher frame rate, but it feels like the game's logic can barely keep up with the fast frame rates I was getting, causing an unsettling jerky feeling throughout the game - even though the frame rates were doing just fine.

From the two-minute, almost completely useless tutorial that pretty much expects you to have played Tony Hawk games before to a wide range of difficulty on many of the goals and new features that just plain suck, Tony Hawk's Proving Ground simply fails to be much fun and will definitely frustrate new players.

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

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.

If you really wanted to get more out of rampaging around in GTAIV or want to go through an open-world action game with a buddy together over Live, then this one is worth your money. Otherwise, you might want to keep your cash and see what the rest of the holiday season offers us.

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.

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.

Ultimate Ghosts & Goblins may bring on some nostalgia and looks fun for a while, but unless you are fantastically good at side-scrolling games or just plain masochistic when it comes to your gaming, this one's not worth your money.