Taken as a whole, BLACK is just your average first-person shooter.

For a guy like me who had to borrow a friends guitar to actually try the game – the fact that I'm now contemplating visiting a pawn shop to cash in on someone else's inability to make ends meet and buy my very own guitar should speak volumes to the titles power as a fun learning tool. Beginners, give this a shot – especially if you've already got a guitar collecting dust in the closet.

A funny and challenging game that will put your space station tycoon skills to the test.

May not be the most original game, but in the end, it’s a fun one. If you want to spend a weekend hacking and slashing alone or with online buddies, you can’t go wrong with this game.

Buzz: Hollywood Quiz deftly straddles the line between budget and quality, and if you're hurting for a movie-based trivia game, you can hardly go wrong here.

EndWar is fun, fast-paced and will likely swoon even a few jaded shooter fans to the RTS fold.

Though the game relies heavily on cheap scares, it's a refreshing take on horror-themed games. It's also a bit longer than you'd expect from a straightforward action game, though the increased length is offset by an overall lack of variety.

Whether you're a seasoned veteran or wet-behind-the-ears newbie, Chains of Promathia adds even more to see and do in the already robust world of Vana'diel.

The across-the-board improvements on Xbox 360 pick up where the current-gen gameplay left off, but they probably don't justify the added cost for people who have already played a current-gen version.

In spite of an abundance of cheap shots, the game's personality and originality elevate The Gunstringer into the upper echelon of Kinect titles. In fact, it's my favorite Xbox Kinect title to date.

With the co-op you'd have a higher score, but without it, this is just an entertaining experience that will soon be forgotten.

Frustrating at times but on the whole a great game for individual or multiple players. It's definitely worth the low price of 800 Microsoft Points.

Coming in at 240 points, it's a tad more expensive than the rest of the Pinball FX 2 tables for some reason or another but don't let that $0.50 scare you off as if you're a fan of what Zen has done to revitalize video pinball then you'll be happy with the new table to help fill in your grid.

Project Origin is really like every other first-person shooter out there -- but without multiplayer.

Tilting the Wii Remote to control the table is intuitive and feels natural. Color matching can be frustrating at times, but adds to the overall challenge of the gameplay.

As a multiplayer game, this is sure to bring some friends together for some online poker who might not otherwise be able to play together, and at that point the pacing of the game isn't really that important. As a single player game, if you can put aside the duration of the tournaments and look at the AI that the game has in the form of the Pros, then this game really succeeds in my opinion.

Sniping can be cool, but this game finds a way to make it much more boring than it should be.

A decent outing with decent air combat, but it's nothing you've never seen before.

Short of the opening music, which is awesome and sounds like a demonic mariachi band, I can't think of many redeeming qualities in Shadows of the Damned. It's not in the same craptastic league as Thor, which suffered from horrible gameplay and production values; it's just a waste of time.

A few quirks and maybe a bit too fast at times, but overall, an enjoyable game.

Enjoyable arcade-style baseball that is just deep enough to keep you interested and not overwhelmed in the minutia of management.

A decent outing with decent air combat, but it’s nothing you’ve never seen before.

All in all, Gradius Collection is a set of "fan's games," in that only someone who really loves the hyperactive side-scrolling action of the original can love this package.

Flawed squad mechanics and a crutch-like suppression system undo the game's historical and voice-acting achievements.

Flawed squad mechanics and a crutch-like suppression system undo the game's historical and voice-acting achievements.

The game misses the mark in several ways, but with the right programming and more analysis into whether toddlers are really the most appropriate target for this sort of product, we could be witnessing the birth of a whole new educational medium. It's just not there yet.

If it existed in a vacuum it'd rank better, but this is a strong holiday for videogame shooters.

Let's put it this way: how many arcade stand-ups did you buy and take home with you? Metal Slug 3 is one of those games you'll think fondly of for years to come, but it's probably one of those titles, like the coin-op arcade classics, that you'd just as soon remember fondly than have at home collecting dust for years to come.