While Ratchet and Clank's latest outing would serve as a great starting point for those just discovering the franchise, it's an even wilder ride for longtime fans. The story is packed with surprises, including some shockers about the duo's origins, as well as answers to some longstanding questions.

If you're interested in a more grounded story and don't mind calling a game without violence, well, an actual game, then you should definitely consider Gone Home. For everyone else the best I can recommend is to keep an open mind in the future and maybe catch the next one.

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.

Once you kick in the mass numbers of units, a great soundtrack by Jeremy Soule, and plenty of challenge from the Skirmish AI, you'll find that Supreme Commander is a great full package.

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

But if they can get some online updates through to clear up the more glaring issues and maybe adjust some of the stranger problems that plague online and offline play, this will be the best boxing game ever made. Until then, I don't recommend that you run out and purchase this game just yet.

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.

The AI is better than ever and the action is the perfect mix of tactics and full-on gunfights - and the regenerating health system means I have to worry less about how much health I have left and more about how to take out the overwhelming numbers of Germans.

As far as console launch games go, I've seen better (Soul Calibur, Lumines, Halo, and a few Mario titles come to mind), but Resistance: Fall of Man is certainly up there with some of the best.

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.

I'm not going to even attempt to suggest that Saints Row IV is some kind of video-game-defining-moment or whatever, but at least for this generation, we might have found the best example yet of a big-budget developer doing whatever the hell they want and rather than being generally criticized for what doesn't work, being celebrated by newcomers and fans alike for what does.

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.

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.

PunchOut!! is great fun for fans of the NES classic as well as for fresh contenders.

Obsidian has done an incredible job with Knights of the Old Republic 2. Even though the introduction and ending are a bit iffy, the game's more than worth the effort of going through.

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.

Modern Warfare 2 deserves to be one of the biggest games this year, but it's still up in the air whether the PC community will let go of their grudges and enjoy this version for the great game it is anyway.

While Mortal Kombat may not completely overwhelm you with features, it does offer more replayability than recent offerings from other fighting game developers - Capcom included. This game may not quite have tournament-level gameplay depth and that's mostly due to some minor issues with hit detection and the combo system, but this is still the most polished and pro-gamer-worthy MK we've seen in the last decade.

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.

Max Payne 2 retains or expands on almost everything great from MP1 while adding new features, an intense story, an insane amount of detail, and even more wonderful gameplay.

The missions are a neat addition to the series but the game truly shines when you get into the single games - with the wide array of scenarios that you can choose from and small settings you can tweak, you'll be playing different games for a long time to come.

Tomb Raider delivers a slick, fun time with plenty of collectibles, great action, and an excellent main character.

Professor Layton and the Unwound Future is far and away the best of this one-of-a-kind series.

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.

While the career mode's lack of difficulty is disappointing, those looking for a challenge will still have plenty of that from the well-made online modes. Fight Night Round 3 is most definitely a winner.

Bastion's a great little RPG but above and beyond genre, it's one of the best-looking, best-sounding (despite the pointless narrator), best-playing games you'll download this year and a total bargain at 1200 Microsoft Points.

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.

Either way, if you enjoyed most GTA games but felt like Liberty City Stories was just missing a few too many features, then you'll really get into GTA Vice City Stories.