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>

Of the 300-plus games I have played, Zelda: Wind Waker ranks in my top three of all time. It's elegant, enchanting, engrossing, beautifully stylized, perfectly polished-a gaming work of art-a masterpiece.

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.

This is what other adventure games only aspire to be. It is extremely well-written, well-executed, and above all, fun to play.

Knights of the Old Republic is fast-paced, linear, and consistently entertaining, and the goals are always clear. This was a nearly perfect gaming experience, at least by my standards.

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.

If you can overlook the annoying aspect of having to start over and only being able to save at the beginning of a new episode or when you quit the game, you will experience an amazingly hard but also wonderfully fun game.

It really is an extraordinarily beautiful piece of work. For me, though, it missed the mark. I got bored with it about halfway through.

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.

A magnum opus. Even though it does have some small flaws and a couple of things I would change, it is absolutely breathtaking in all respects. They just don&#146;t get any better than this.

Superb craftsmanship, inventive scripting, wonderful acting, brilliant enemy AI, and sumptuous graphics are all placed in a huge, varied, and intensely colorful 60s setting by a team clearly bestowing care and love on their work and product.

Planescape is very, very special. Some might say it's too bizarre and weird, but I found it a refreshingly deep and thoughtful interlude in an otherwise cookie-cutter world of Samegaming.

There is not much to say. Neverwinter Nights is fun, a lot of fun. It is also bland. Despite its figurative colorlessness, it has an addictive quality to it.

If it sounds like NOLF2 is a lot like NOLF, and you're wondering why I'm complaining so bitterly, you have my sympathy. When I say they "gutted" NOLF2, I mean it, and I can back it up.

It is very frustrating at times and loads of fun at other times and on the whole well worth a play through, with the magnificent ending making it all worthwhile.

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

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.

In an age where you thought everything has been done before, along comes Freedom Force, shattering genre lines, daring to do something different, and instilling fun for all ages into a game&#151;you can't ask for anything more.

While Jedi Outcast is firmly entrenched in the action genre, that shouldn't frighten away adventure gamers. If you've ever played an action/adventure game and have an interest in Star Wars, it's imperative to play this game.

You find a spectacularly violent and wonderfully thrilling adventure composed of epic, earth-shattering battles between deities' champions, fought in a dreamlike landscape as weird and varied as it is beautiful.

It is a beautiful, exciting, rich, and well-written game. It is everything that a great CRPG hopes to be.

It is vastly enjoyable. It consistently seduces with its vitality, its muscular flex, its postapocalyptic &#233;lan, its vivid, hyperreal environment.

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.

Overall, the Silent Hill 2 experience is worth having, if just for the freak-out value. It's not that compelling a story, and the puzzles aren't too difficult, but it's gorgeous to look at and listen to.

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.

Yet Mafia oozes class, polish, and style like no other game so far this year. To not "experience" Mafia is a far greater crime than any in the Salieri family ever committed.

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.

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.

A fine RPG, very loosely based upon a simplified Dungeons & Dragons motif. The game mechanics are easy, leaving you to focus on the puzzles, the high-adrenaline battles, and the lustful visuals.

The wide range of character classes to choose from, the forming and perpetual refining of each character, and the sheer breadth of customizing traits available all serve to solidify the replay value of this immense epic.

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.

Dark Cloud 2 has a great story, lots of adventure, unique characters and monsters and Spehda! What's not to love? This one is a keeper!

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.

Dungeon Siege could have used a deeper plot, more vocalizations and some good cutscenes, but like its predecessor-type RPG Diablo, it eschews deeper storylines and keeps the gamer busy with high-intensity fighting against rushes of unique enemies instead.

Frankly, Max Payne 2 makes me confident that the best is yet to come for gaming, that the awesome narrative and creative capability of this medium has yet to be explored to its fullest extent.

This is an entertaining romp with just enough variation, humor and story to hold your attention right to the end.

EMI is not a bad game but it will never join its brethren in the panoply of gods of the genre. I for one would like to see LucasArts get out of the sequel to sequel to sequel business altogether and focus solely on new ideas.

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

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.

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

A tremendously valuable expansion to the world of “Morrowind,” adding a new story and an environment of real depth and complexity.

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.

With McGee's willingness to be generic with gameplay and story, we are ultimately let down by excessive and pointless jumping, poor combat, and a rather empty, non-interactive narrative. It's a very pretty and novel game but also flawed.

A classic. That's what it is. Obsidian may be the most innovative, imaginative puzzle adventure ever conceived.

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.

Ghosts to Glory is one of the most addicting, angering, exciting, and unforgiving-as-all-get-out (when jumping onto moving targets) games that I have ever played! There is never a dull moment.

I am a big fan of casual games. It takes a special type of genius to come up with an easy-to-learn game that rewards hours of play. Given how much fun I've had playing D.N.A., I would have to say that the folks at 5th Cell Media are geniuses of that special type.

HOMM4 will infect you with what I like to call the "Turn Based Sickness." Symptoms include loss of temporal perception and inability to perform other functions (including bodily) until "just one more turn" has been completed.

The frenetic pace and intense (sometimes frustrating) challenges of the 10 levels is absorbing, graphically most satisfying, quite varied and, most of all, funny.

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.

Presto has raised the bar, taking gaming from a pastime and moving it into the realm of a legitimate art form.

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.

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.

It is really hard for a run-of-the-mill writer like me to do justice to Syberia in describing it. Ultimately all I can tell you is this: Play it yourself! It is not likely you will be disappointed.

At times it is an adventure game, then it's a flight simulation, at another turn a space shooter. Whatever it is, it's a great game that any Trek fan can't pass by.

However, its extreme nonlinearity, the inclusion of violent scenes, and a sense of being what is in reality a completely timed game set it apart from standard pure adventure fare.

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.

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.

Nothing extra special, not great, not terrible. Just Nancy Drew doing what Nancy Drew do.

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.

With a novel, large and intricate set of societies, coupled with excellent graphics and sound, Gothic becomes one of the most immersive and believable single-play adventure/RPGs ever.

The million-dollar question ... is this game for you? If you're a steadfast-conservative adventure gamer, well, then, no. If you like to try new things, then the answer is a resounding yes!

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.

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.

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.

If you've ever wanted to enter the puerile world of your Sims with a team of bizarre spirits, then this is the game for you.

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.

GK3 is a long, difficult, immersive game with a strong, adult-oriented plot.

Generally speaking Tribunal is a great expansion pack. It fixes bugs, adds new places to explore, enhances the capabilities of the game, and is very well written and designed.

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.

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."

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

There is definitely too much of a good thing here&#151;by the time I was ready to put this game behind me and move on to something else, I still had to spend another full day playing just to reach the "real" end.

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

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.

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.

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.

Largely ignored by the mainstream gaming press, this fabulous epic of a game will draw you in with both its warmth and its ever-increasing tale.

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!

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.

Billed as a real-time, team-based, adventure, strategy game, it may sound as though it suffers from an identity crisis. Yet if you are enthralled by solving puzzles and have an infinite amount of patience, this game is for you.

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.

&#147;Rayman 2&#148; was a better game, but Hoodlum Havoc nevertheless ranks as one of the best platform titles available. It's polished, smooth, and done with care and affection. The levels are gorgeous, inventive and worth exploring.

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.

If you take SAIS for what it is, a little time-waster with funny and interesting twists, and don't think of it as the second coming of &#147;Privateer&#148; or complex space strategy, you may well find it enjoyable, kind of inventive and creative.

The high production values, unique setting, beautiful graphics, and lack of old chestnuts in terms of puzzles make this a refreshing alternative to the usual generic Egypt-Atlantis-maze-sliding-tiles pabulum we've been force-fed for the past few years.

All in all, Anachronox is a long, rich, elegant, worthwhile, and above all satisfying gaming experience. The characters, story, and quests are really loads of fun. The goals are always clear, and if you get sidetracked you have no one to blame but yourself, and ultimately no harm is done.

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.

So see the film, take a little break, then turn down the lights, put on headphones, and prepare yourself for the atmosphere, anticipation, apprehension, anxiety and action of The Thing.

For the child around you, or the child within you, and any fan of the Potter series, Chamber comes highly recommended.

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.

If you like first-person perspectives in RPGs and enjoyed &#147;Morrowind&#148; (an all-around better game), plus have a high tolerance for the aforementioned idiosyncrasies of Arx, then I would recommend this title to you.

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.

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.

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.

To sum up, Unreal II is disappointing, not so much in terms of what it is as in terms of what we expected, what it hints at, and what it might have been.

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.