Lineage 2 is a brilliant game with a few very brutal rules that will wind up being its undoing.

Painkiller delivers satisfying gameplay, excellent visuals, and a visceral feel that veteran FPS players will feel right at home with.

Fight Night 2004 makes huge strides compared to EA's previous Knockout Kings games. While there is plenty of room for improvement, EA has done an excellent job making those who want a sim-style boxing title happy.

Far Cry's excellent graphics, decent multiplayer, and good single player combat make up the meat of this game.

It's hard to find any real fault in Unreal Tournament 2004.

This game has little to do with Everquest, but it has everything to do with simple hack and slash action and plenty of features to keep you coming back.

Metroid: Zero Mission offers a perfect balance of retro gameplay with new graphics, sounds, story, and a few surprises.

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

Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 2 builds on its predecessor with new characters, challenging gameplay, plenty of new items, and the workshop system.

Interplay's Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel is an action/RPG title that seems like it's less than the sum of its parts. Not only is the action disjointed, but it's just a bit too much of a chore to bash your way through it.

Simply put, the price tag is too high for what amounts to little more than a patch for a four-year-old game.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is a well-made revival of the classic action/adventure series with awesome graphics and jumping puzzles that are far less frustrating than you might expect.

Ubisoft has delivered a great sleeper title with Beyond Good & Evil despite a couple of control and technical issues.

Bioware's awesome RPG Knights of the Old Republic feels right at home on the PC with high-res graphics and an excellent control scheme.

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.

Beat-em-up fans would do well to try Double Dragon Advance, a well-made and greatly enhanced port of the arcade classic.

Rarely does a game boast this sort of cinematic appeal while actually being fun to play, but Return of the King delivers.

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.

Halo PC is a fairly functional port of an excellent game. The lack of co-op and the sluggish frame rate are the big disappointments, but the solo campaign is a must-play for any respectable FPS fan.

Jedi Academy is an evolution of Jedi Knight gameplay with more customizability, cool new sabers, and plenty of fun to be had.

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

Soul Calibur 2 is an evolution of the original on all levels - it might take you weeks of play to figure out all the changes made from the first game.

Tron 2.0 is a great example of a well executed movie-based game that exploits our nostalgia in all the right ways.

The PC version of THPS4 is a by-the-book port with one major upgrade: the online mode.

Knights of the Old Republic is a near-perfect execution of a new and bold idea: a traditional computer RPG, done in full 3D, brought to a console, imbued with the Force.

Star Wars Galaxies could be a great MMORPG in time, as it has some excellent potential and a solid technology base. But if you want a balanced combination of exciting combat, quick progress, and fun PvP, and you want it right now, then SWG is not the game for you.

Pirates of the Caribbean is a tough game; it might mislead some buyers into thinking it shares much more than a name with the Hollywood movie.

The high difficulty is a bit of a problem, the interface is a bit too console-like, and the multiplayer internet games could be set up a bit better, but it's still a fine game.