Atmosphere. Jonathan Boakes is a master at creating atmosphere. With lovely yet creepy visual settings, a story with secrets and ghosts, spine-tingling ambient sounds, The Lost Crown presents a tale sure to attract and basically please most adventure game players. But is a spooky atmosphere enough?

So often during the game, I wished for direct control of Lea instead of being saddled with this novel but frequently frustrating secondary approach. Instead of cluttering the monitor with multiple screens, let Lea do it herself!

Culpa Innata is one of the finest adventure games of 2007. Although not without flaws (graphics, pathfinding, wordiness), it offers a solid police procedural within an engrossing futuristic setting.

With a compelling narrative, intriguing setting, stellar acting, gorgeous graphics and character animations, Evil Under the Sun is one of the two finest detective/adventure games I've ever played—the other being Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened.. This isn't a game to be "beaten;" rather, it's a journey to be savored, reflected upon, remembered.

For the first time in its history, Valve has produced other than a superlative product. That's more disorienting than disappointing, as though the sky had suddenly changed color or cats started speaking. I don't dislike Episode Two. I just wish I liked it more.

Portal, tucked neatly alongside four other games, outshines them all and ensures itself a place in posterity.

I'm pleased to award East Side Story a solid Thumb Up, highly recommending it to any fan of a good story with interesting characters in an attractive and unusual locale.

The most amazing thing about Bioshock is that it never comes off as preachy or self-indulgent. For all its many themes, it is, and can be enjoyed as, exactly what Ken Levine has always said it is: a shooter. One of the very cleanest, best-executed shooters ever made.

Runaway 2 improves on its predecessor in every way. It's bigger, more colorful, even more wacky. Locations and characters are outlandish, as is the storyline. Obscure puzzles and hot spots, as well as occasional repetitiveness, still plague this release. But I would still give The Dream of the Turtle a hearty recommendation, especially if you enjoyed "Runaway 1."

The Blackwell Legacy is an outstandingly written and acted adventure game, only held back by limitations of the fairly primitive game engine and, perhaps, some design decisions. It readily gets a "Thumb Up" from this reviewer. As one who particularly enjoys story and narrative, I found The Blackwell Legacy to be compelling, involving, memorable.

There are more of these little games on the way. So how long will the gaming public tolerate the same dish time and time again? Quite a while, I'm guessing. If the quality holds and the ingredients remain fresh, probably for as long as Telltale wants to keep cooking them up.

Gameplay is fun fun fun, with the two caveats that there is too much too-tiresome combat near the end of the game and there are two or three unfair puzzles in the adventuring part, unfair meaning nigh unbeatable by anyone at all without outside help.

Looking back at MOTOE, I had mixed reactions. On the one hand, the game is unusual in its setting, very well-produced, full of rich and enticing atmosphere. Yet, on the other hand, it's very linear, full of repetitive busy work, and really seems more like an interactive novel than a game where your actions can impact the game world and possible outcome.

Old or young, if you're looking for a beautiful, goofy, moderately disturbing game that encourages experimentation and guarantees many hours of fun, Viva Pinata is a safe bet. It absolutely could have been better, but it's still a triumph in its own little way, and it's proof that for all the recent five-out-of-tens, Rare still has it where it counts.

Arkane's previous offering, Arx Fatalis, shares many general similarities but lacks Dark Messiah's energetic, if somewhat ill-fated, attempts to bring physics, stealth and a variety of combat options into the mix of a game that may not live up to all of its potential but still delivers the goods where they count.

One way or the other, if you have a glimmer of an iota of a flicker of adventure love left in that congealed lump of moldering paté you call a heart, you owe it to yourself to check this one out. This game only slightly suffers from being too short and otherwise easily bunny hops into gold star adventure game territory.

Okami has elements of many genres—platforming, adventure, RPG and action all apply. But there's more to it than that. There's something so ... joyous about it, in Amaterasu's happy barks, in her running, her jumping, her digging of holes. I found myself ignoring the game for stretches, just doing these things. I don't know if it's the way the controls handle, or the graphics, or what, but it's there. Okami is the video game version of Professor Dumbledore, managing somehow to be both gleeful and august.

It's the realism that makes the supernatural elements seem so menacing, the beautifully designed, multi-layered puzzles with their much-appreciated clues, the dark atmosphere, lovely graphics, and the restrained, perfectly pitched sounds that make this game an experience.

Part platformer, part pure action, part open-world adventure, there are a number of ways to enjoy Dead Rising.

The measure of a puzzle game is not, of course, how pretty it looks or how convincing it sounds. The measure is how well it plays. I am happy to report that Safecracker 2006 plays beautifully. There are some familiar puzzles, some unfamiliar puzzles, and some very clever twists on the whole idea of what constitutes a puzzle.

And I did have fun playing Gods: Lands of Infinity - no question about that at all.

Half-Life 2: Episode One is really one of the best games I've played in recent months, and I'm eagerly anticipating the next installment. Though it provides little in the way of exposition and does nothing to reduce the opacity of the plot (which would be interesting if it made sense), its mood and design are so elegantly realized that minor complaints about storyline holes can't seriously diminish the accomplishment.

Wild Earth picked up three prizes at the 2003 Independent Game Festival: Game of the Year, Innovation in Game Design, and Innovation in Visual Arts. All well-deserved. Even three years later, it remains a stunner.

The overall quality of the game far outweighs every one of its shortcomings. In my humble opinion, this game represents a labor of love from people who wanted to pay homage to Lovecraft.

These won't quite fulfill your old-school needs, but they are about as close as you can get in these times when cookie-cutter games reign supreme in the adventure world.

With an original concept and less cliché-mongering, we could be bearing witness to a rising star. For now, though, it flickers with dim promise on the horizon, catching our eye but not holding us long enough to do much more than raise a finger and point.

Fritz 9 expands upon the excellent versions of the past two years with updated graphics, broader tutorials, helping tools and an expanded database. If you're going to buy one program, this is the one, especially since it includes a $35 value PlayChess.com membership.

The short version is that Ubisoft has continued its storied tradition of doing nearly everything wrong yet somehow managing to produce a great game. Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones is awesome.