The underlying story is engrossing, thrilling, daring.

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?

It is so much like Rhem 2 that it feels like the same game in a slightly different setting, which is exactly what it is. The faults I found grating but forgivable in Rhem 2 were magnified by their reappearance in Rhem 3. Some people won't see the lack of story and the ancient game engine as faults. Great news for them. But my time with Rhem 3 was split between interest and frustration.

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!

The premise and the promise of Next Life led this reviewer to really look forward to spending some hours with these "reprobates." Unfortunately, I can only give a mixed rating to a flawed title.

Unfortunately, the more I thought about it, the less I liked it. It was not so much a story as it was a string of portentous hints about dark things. Hints that never developed into a cohesive narrative.

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.

It is, to the best of my knowledge, the biggest point-and-click, real-world-image game ever created. Sadly, in all other respects, it gives even the least of its peers nothing to aspire to. It doesn't take long to realize that the full screen images of Anacapri (the place) are the only good thing about the game.

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.

An initially engrossing horror mystery takes serious damage on the "reefs" of a confounding interface, frustrating linearity and mind-boggling puzzles.

Gamers the world over would thrill to play a soup-to-nuts remake of X-COM, updated with modern tech but otherwise essentially the same. In trying to mimic X-COM but also leverage original ideas, Altar's UFO series has succeeded only in highlighting its shortcomings - shortcomings particularly egregious in this disappointing installment.

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.

Though it pains me to do it, the best rating I can give this, the 14th entry in the Nancy Drew series, is "average." It's a good-looking game with some enjoyable challenges, but the two stories it tells have nothing to do with each other, effectively denying players one of the basic satisfactions of mystery fiction.

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.

Digital distribution may never replace retail sales, and episodic content may never become the standard for all games, but the future of both is startlingly bright. Sin Episodes is among the first to fling itself into that future. Though common in its gameplay, it is also enjoyable: had it been ten bucks instead of twenty, I'd be raving.

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.

While I really like this sort of game, I do not like the fact that the game's difficulty is so unbalanced as to make playing the latter stages a study in frustration. If I want aggravation, I can attempt to cancel an online service.

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.

But the fact is "X-Com" is twelve years old, and memory has a way of polishing off the burrs and nits that flaw a game, leaving you with only the hard candy shell of perfection. UFO: Aftershock cannot measure up any more than "UFO: Aftermath" did, but it hits a lot closer to the mark.

Moving to the highest rank of film-game complements (it's more than a "spin-off"), King Kong comes highly recommended. It's best to see the film first, but the game also stands alone in its own right as a fantastic experience. It's gorgeous, wonderfully scripted and acted, extremely tense and involving.

How much do you enjoy puzzles in your adventure games? Do you really, really love them? You had better if you're going to play Rhem 2, because your answer to that question is critical to your enjoyment of this game. Rhem 2 is a game geared toward a very specific audience: adventure gamers who love puzzles and don't need a story.

And Then There Were None is, as the developers hoped, a "loving tribute" to the classic Agatha Christie novel on which it is based. With a sterling script, fascinating characters, superb voice acting, beautifully detailed graphics, and sensibly practical puzzles, it ranks among the best adventure games of the last couple of years.

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.

Simply put, this game is so brilliant that it ought to be fined. Created by the same team responsible for 2001's critically acclaimed "Ico," it follows a similar sort of theme and demands even more sentimental investiture than its predecessor did. Its elegant simplicity, its beauty, its unbelievable capacity to draw you in are without peer. I have never played a game like Shadow of the Colossus, because there are no games like it.

Trace Memory is a cracker-jack adventure game developed and beautifully suited for the DS system. It's not at the level and complexity of the best adventure titles for the PC, but it's not reasonable to expect that from a handheld title. What it does bring to the table is an engaging, wonderfully done and integrated story with facilitating puzzles.

As it is, my enjoyment was tempered by a concern that the production crew is losing focus on what makes the games work. Though I remain a fan of the series, and am giving Train a Thumb Up, I am hopeful that Her Interactive will proceed with care in tampering with a formula that has, so far, served them well.

Clock, with its sunny exteriors and perpetual daylight, feels like the adventure game equivalent of a beach book. It's light, bright, and fun.

ER is not a terribly complicated game, with a setting and tasks that are limited in scope. Yet fans of the show, and those desiring a bit different sim experience, will undoubtedly find laughs and enjoyment in this light-hearted depiction of an intern's first days.

Overall, Heretic Kingdoms is fun, fun, fun and destined to be a sleeper hit. The few niggles never really affected my enjoyment of the game. With its engaging story and completely different skill system, it's definitely worth your while to pick it up and play.

Tactical enough that your play style will be drastically different from a normal shooter, but it's not so ridiculously tactical that they forgot to include a game with the game. In many ways, SWAT 4 strikes the perfect balance between action, tactics, and challenge

If you didn't like DOOM 3, well, you won't like Resurrection. The Grabber is fun, but there's one in "Half Life 2." But it still looks amazing, and it's still an enormously gory, satisfying experience for those who just want to blow off some steam.

Chaos Theory gives a compelling gameplay experience that suffers a bit from a weak narrative and a failure to make consistent use of the graphical power of the Gamecube. Even with its flaws, it's one of the best games available for the Gamecube.

It's safe to say this game has more monkeys than any game other than Ape Escape. These aren't just any monkeys, either. There are zombie monkeys, robot monkeys, mutant monkeys, lab monkeys, disco monkeys, ninja monkeys and plain old throw-feces-at-you monkeys. If you love monkeys, this game is for you.

From involving story to eye-popping graphics, very funny script, incredible characters, great voice acting, ultra-smooth gameplay, and an unusual range of extended play options, FFVTR brings it all together better than any PC game I've played in the past year.

One of the best adventure games of 2004 and likely the best ever to deal with a futuristic, Orwellian theme of corruption and conspiracy. Story, dialogue, character development, settings, artwork, acting, and music are all superb.

An example of what a company can do when it takes an existing genre and reshapes it into something refreshing. If you want to experience a game with a great story, you like FPS games, and you have an open mind, then I highly recommend it.

The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap is pretty amazing. I have an Xbox 360 and I just got a shiny new PC. I'm on the cutting edge of technology. But when I think of all the games I've played over the past six months, The Minish Cap-a Gameboy Advance game-rises right to the top of my list. It's just that good.

For those who've never played the original, Bad Mojo Redux is a must-have. Load it up and see what all the shouting was about. For those who've played the Win3.1 version, Bad Mojo Redux is what the game should have looked like and, when coupled with the companion DVD, is the deal of the year.

Generally speaking, though, the gameplay of Battle out of Hell has the same adrenaline-soaked excitement of the original. Wild firefights, huge minibosses and the occasional challenging puzzle are rolled up into the same tight, clean, delicious package.

Warrior Within is not a perfect game. In many ways, it stands as a badly written testament to exactly what is wrong with video games: sexism, teenage hormones, amateurish writing, clumsy franchise handling. But it's entertaining. It's incredibly entertaining.

If a rogue is one who doesn't fit, doesn't mesh, doesn't belong, than GoldenEye: Rogue Agent is aptly named. It's shallow, empty, tedious, rarely involving or interesting. The Bond license, gimmicky shooters, even hitmen are all shown to much better form in many other games.

Legacy: Dark Shadows isn't a bad game, and there definitely appeared to be a better game lurking somewhere just on the outer boundaries.

Represents the pinnacle of great action shooters because it strictly adheres to the one rule that makes an FPS great, the one rule that so many developers ignore, or break due to ineptitude and then conceal behind a shroud of tacked-on complexity: in a first person shooter, level design is <I>everything.</I>

It is a sweet little game that would likely please any adventure gamer, especially those who play their games more than once.

While the repetitive combat and dated graphics keep me from awarding it the FFC Gold Star, I got a lot of mileage out of it on my own personal Fun-O-Meter.

While the repetitive combat and dated graphics keep me from awarding it the FFC Gold Star, I got a lot of mileage out of it on my own personal Fun-O-Meter.

Justice is Served is, by far, the best in this illustrious series. It's excellently written, bigger in scope, longer, better looking. It gets my highest recommendation as a must-buy for any fan of the show and really any adventure gamer looking for an involving and entertaining mystery to be solved.

The puzzles were challenging, the various ways to end my visit were hilarious, and the minigames added an extra bit of diversion and fun to the game. While the game may be a little difficult and scary for those at the low end of the age requirement, I think the 12+ group will have fun with it. I know that I did.

But where "Dungeon Keeper 2" was graceful, elegant, superbly tuned - possibly the perfect RTS - Evil Genius is clumsy, boorish, frustrating, and frankly not worth the price of admission.

Initially, the game impresses with attractive settings, decent voice acting and the promise of a thoughtful mystery to be solved. Unfortunately, this becomes bogged down by static scenes, poor character movement control, obscure pixel-hunting and the wearying need to redo conversations.

Its story made me want to find out more about Randolph's search, the puzzles kept me entertained and the hunt for Easter eggs had me clicking like a madwoman.

A varied and entertaining romp through an involving storyline in the X-Men universe. Fans of the comics and films will find this well-done game a must-have.

Second Sight brings us one of the best console game stories of the year. It's beautifully scripted and acted, with twists and turns that will leave you guessing, surprised, and desirous of playing to the next step.

As I drifted from place to place looking at the pretty pictures and listening to the dark, I found myself asking, "Where's the game?" For the majority of Lights Out, I felt that I was simply wandering through a museum - lots of things to look at or read, but not much else.

DOOM 3 joins the tiny handful of games we've seen this year that really are all they're cracked up to be. It's got fun, excitement, good looks—everything people look for both in a potential mate and in a video game.

It's hard to envision a better first adventure game for a preteen person&#151;girl or boy. The story is "safe," interesting, and in a wide-open western setting replete with legends, romance and novel characters.

A nice little middle-of-the-road change of pace&#151;neither incredibly horrible nor the best invention since sliced bread. I can forgive the odd, sometimes creepy-looking, representation of humans and to a certain extent the bad voice-acting; but where it really fell apart for me was the finale.

With satisfactory graphics, outstanding audio and acting, involving mystery-like story, smooth gameplay mechanics, The Suffering moves to the top ranks, joining such titles as "Clive Barker's Undying" and "Eternal Darkness."

The depth of the options menus puts many bigger-budget games to shame. Virtually everything about Mob Enforcer can be tweaked.

I have never seen a game use light the way Deadly Shadows does, nor have I seen such realistic environments rendered on the fly. For those who can get it to work well on their systems, this is an astounding visual experience.

This game is the sort of which I'd like to see more: breathtaking attention to detail, deeply satisfying gameplay, and a focus on pure, simple fun that doesn't in any way defeat or diminish a richly powerful thematic narrative.

For many, this general creepiness of visuals and sounds, coupled with fear of the unknown, will be sufficient. For this gamer, more is needed, leading to my mixed rating ("maybe yes, maybe no").

Though the game world visuals are sumptuous and the animation in the cutscenes first-rate, the dialogue doesn't play and the puzzles have none of the physical intelligence of the developer's earlier work. Forever Worlds is a huge, huge disappointment.

With dated graphics, redundant settings and gameplay, mediocre production values, I can only recommend this for fans only&#151;those who have to play every tactical game that comes down the pike, whether its taking on the Nazis, Western bad men, a Nottingham sheriff, or runaway Mafia.

It is a masterwork when viewed as an exemplar of the video game as art, one of the very best fusions of story and imagery extant in the medium today, and for that reason alone it deserves a place in the eventual Electronic Entertainment Hall of Fame.

Unfortunately, having to battle the interface made the game tedious, and I lost interest about a third of the way through.

An excellent sequel&#151;with better graphics, twice the length, a greater degree of difficulty. It has a few bugs (get patch 1.01) but should run fine on even minimum-specification systems.

Indeed, A Quiet Weekend exhibits not only two of the hallmarks of fine adventure titles&#151;story accompanied by relevant puzzles&#151;but also adds the unusual component of a real place that can even simply be toured, if you wish!

This full-price game is not in the same league as &#147;Mafia,&#148; &#147;Grand Theft Auto 3,&#148; or even &#147;Grand Theft Auto 2.&#148; I suspect the developers tried to do too much, and they ended up with an often-confounding game

SpellForce enlisted my involvement and playing dedication with the incredible opening cinematic, the brilliant tutorial and, ultimately, the absolutely captivating game adventure itself.

And like a boring dinner party, as the game wrapped up I found myself relieved that it was finally ending. Except ... well, the game did indeed stop, but as for a satisfactory ending ... you can decide for yourself.

Overall, I can't totally endorse or condemn Blade & Sword. It's one of those titles that I couldn't help but have a love/hate relationship with.

I was disappointed that no effort was put into the PC version, and it even lacks any of the extras featured on the console versions, but I found it a fun little action game that kept me entertained for 10 or so hours.

It sports superb writing and voice acting, is laugh-out-loud funny, and brings enough originality to the table that it's worth more than a passing glance by action game fans.

If you're in the mood for a shooter with style, action, and lasting value, you're better off with &#147;Serious Sam&#148; than with XIII.

Is this the future of adventure games? If the development community uses this as a launching pad, and what we see here is just the infancy of incorporating interactivity into cutscenes, then we could be witnessing the birth of something truly extraordinary.

Love it or hate it, I believe we will look back in five or ten years and see this as a watershed moment in our brief gaming history, in much the same way as the original 1993 “Myst” is now viewed.

All in all, Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy is a truly fun little romp. While not as long as some games, it's worth the price of admission just to see the Mummy dancing with electricity or flattened like a piece of paper!