Without a doubt, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is a masterpiece of storytelling and fits magnificently into the Star Wars universe. Unfortunately, as a video game, the gameplay issues in The Force Unleashed are extremely noticeable and hinder a lot of the enjoyment that is derived from the narrative.

While challenging and strategy intensive, Yggdra Union is polished and easy to like. The combination of an involved strategy game play design and steadily increasing difficulty keeps you hooked, and the thrill of winning against massive armies keeps you coming back.

My biggest takeaway from Chapters of the Chosen is that despite it's sexy new makeover, it still feels like an old school adventure.

In summary, Armored Core: For Answer is a bland game that only exhibits brief periods of satisfaction, namely blowing things up, amidst its numerous flaws. For Answer has some particularly testy controls, poor mission structure, aggravating battles, and a complete lack of flair in its levels.

If you’ve played the previous Peggle incarnations by PopCap and enjoyed them, Peggle Nights is a safe purchase. It’s a new coat of paint on a classic casual title. If you’re unfamiliar with the former stuff, do yourself a favor and (at least) download the demo. It won’t disappoint you. Just ask the PC guys, they've had it forever.

Strong Badia the Free is mostly made up of all new environments, so it in no way felt like a simple recycling of Homestar Ruiner, and while the game's structure of "convert a country, to move to the next country" makes it inherently more predictable than Homestar Ruiner was, it's still full of surprises.

Strong Badia the Free is mostly made up of all new environments, so it in no way felt like a simple recycling of Homestar Ruiner, and while the game's structure of "convert a country, to move to the next country" makes it inherently more predictable than Homestar Ruiner was, it's still full of surprises.

Harmonix doesn’t necessarily break any molds with Rock Band 2, but it does a damn good job of perfecting the one it created. There’s little doubt that this sequel will be the life of just about every party for at least another year.

A big mess of a strategy role-playing game, as it seems to fall short on just about every level. Fans of strategy games can easily overlook a lackluster presentation, but Zoids Assault also suffers a severe lack of appealing game play, making it hard to recommend to anyone.

The game is a vast improvement on what was already a fantastic product in NHL 08, which is due in great part to this year’s pioneering (and addictive) modes.

The world of Viva Piñata seems right at home on the DS. Despite carrying over some faults from the original and dealing with minor limitations, Pocket Paradise is a terrific addition to the DS library and in many ways improves upon the Xbox 360 version.

Lock's Quest is everything a portable strategy game should be. Its battles are exciting little bursts of bite-sized panic attacks, lasting only minutes at a time, but feeling much longer. Despite a few niggles, the stylus controls work pretty damn well, helped by the clean and simple methods of control used. It's just a really, really, really good portable game.

It's not what we expected, and it's not what the game could have been: it's not perfect, or even particularly great. Yet what it offers is wholly unique, and there's a lot of satisfaction to be had in small amounts throughout its running time. I'm in no hurry to play through it again anytime this week, but heck...maybe in a month or so I'll create a whole new species and send them out to the stars.

It's very simplistic, despite the appearance of having a complex system of creature building. Apart from my issues with the combat, at no point is the game really bad, but it's never a whole lot of fun either. It is charming for about an hour's worth of play but not much else.

It’s annoying, frustrating, and those hand cramps are all for naught. I was actually surprised to see that a game as brutally simple and dreadfully mundane as Facebreaker dared to have an online component.

Ultimately, Pirates Vs. Ninja Dodgeball is a waste of time.

Managing the flaws might not have been a chore had the story been compelling, but this is where the game commits one of the worst sins an RPG can in my eyes: it’s just average, and often it feels forced.

Online integration, what I think is the most fascinating new feature of the game.

Castle Crashers remains one of the best beat-'em-ups ever created and certainly one of the top games on XBLA to date.

It never truly captures the imagination nor has the ability to draw a person into its fantasy world.

N+ on the Nintendo DS is a fun, polished game for what it is ... a collection of obstacle courses. But it’s a polished and tight experience, to be sure, although I do feel that the game could benefit from having a tighter overall goal structure versus an open series of mini-challenges.

An incredibly deep videogame that will have gamers enthralled well into 2009. It looks solid, plays superbly, and is a truly refined simulation of golf that obscures its few flaws very well. EA Tiburon has set the bar so high for itself that I can’t envision many ways in which Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2010 can be a better game.

I do appreciate the writing in this title a lot more, because like Super Paper Mario, it really hit home with a lot of otaku and geek tropes, giving me my own personal glee during the dialogues.

You're not getting a sports sim here; this is about simple Wiimote-swinging fun. Those looking for a high level of challenge need to look elsewhere.

The game's stunningly beautiful visuals, coupled with a decently funny script made for an enjoyable adventure.

Galaga Legions is a fun, imaginative XBLA game that I'd recommend in a heartbeat during almost any other time of the year -- but given its lack of content and the other, much more impressive games from the Summer of Arcade, Galaga Legions might not be for everyone.

Maybe the idea was kind of clever, or you may have fun accidentally, but everything else is horrendous.

The game just isn’t fun. The spotty controls, rigid character movement, and frail character creation drag Smash Court into the ground.