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.