The maps are all well-designed, the equipment adds strategic elements to matches, and the creative powers granted to players are unrivaled, at least for a console game. Add to the recipe that unmistakable Bungie polish, and you have a Multiplayer experience that will be enjoyed for thousands of gamers for years to come.

Even if you haven’t touched a fighting game since the 16-bit era, one match of Capcom’s new masterpiece will remind you why you spent so many hours at those now long-shuttered arcades.

And the co-op means that, like the previous two games, Chaos Theory is as close to an essential buy as we can imagine.

With its killer combo of great gameplay, awesome destruction, and cool physics, EA has taken what was a fun diversion and made it into a near masterpiece.

That’s a lot of content for less than a used copy of Snake Eater. And on one hand, it’s difficult to excuse Konami for charging even that much for what amounts to a much-needed and very welcome patch. But the additions are so well-conceived that we’re willing to let them get away with it this last time.

While debate will no doubt rage over the story and its outcomes, there really isn't a single wrong move in the gameplay sections.

An epic, movie quality score works in concert with elaborate, awe-inspiring scenery to blow you and whoever happens to be sitting in front of the television away.

The most complete and all-encompassing "Star Wars" gaming experience yet. Thanks to the nonlinear gameplay and extensive dialog, you experience everything firsthand, and the RPG battles let you direct "Star Wars"-like cinema in a way that's impossible with other genres.

Civ IV isn’t quite light enough to captivate all gamers, but it is the most fun, most engaging, and most entertaining of the series.

The best fighting experience available on home consoles...One of the slickest fighting games ever.

Knocks the chin strap up around the nose of the competition. It's simply the most realistic simulation of football available, and once again, the industry standard.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl has lived up to the promise that has been dangled in front of us for so many years and should be snapped up by just about anyone willing to hold a controller.

It takes the WWII setting and applies it to the kinds of game-related stuff we want to see and do. It’s a game about superior use of tactics and terrain, not overwhelming firepower. In short, it’s an excellent strategy game.

The single-player mode is robust and challenging, and the multiplayer mode is nigh groundbreaking. Once the multiplayer servers are populated, a whole lot of social lives are going to be ruined.

It’s a great comfort to know that Rockstar Games not only makes great games, but understands what makes them great. Chinatown Wars is the culmination of years of work as well as the spirit of ingenuity to bring one of the biggest series to the smallest screen. Nothing in the game feels half done or forced. If anything, the game feels like a development team having fun with a concept.

This is the one, folks. A more complete package you will not find.

If you loved the first "God of War" more than your first born child, get ready to throw out your second child for this sequel.

Even if you haven’t touched a fighting game since the 16-bit era, one match of Capcom’s new masterpiece will remind you why you spent so many hours at those now long-shuttered arcades.

As shocking, unsettling, and addictively compelling as a viewing of HBO's "The Sopranos." It's just that brilliant of a game. Capiche?

Accessible, slick, and most importantly, fun from beginning to end. It leaves the competition clearing powder from its goggles.

Featuring an acute attention to detail in every respect and more substance than fluff, Splinter Cell is the defining espionage simulation... A compelling, unforgettable experience.

The ironically devastated world of Fallout has never been better realized than in Fallout 3, offering a vast landscape that is almost relentlessly bleak in its hopelessness. It's absorbing, immersive, paradoxically beautiful, and kind of depressing to play over long periods of time.

Exceeding already lofty expectations, Gears of War 2 raises the bar a notch for action games this holiday season, and that is no small feat. If you don’t have an Xbox 360 yet, Gears of War 2 is as good a reason as any to compose a short letter to Santa.

It may not be the best-looking soccer game on the market, but Winning Eleven 6 is, hands down, the best to play.

There isn't a better 3-D, weapons-based fighting game on the market.

What is so unique in this game is how the presence of its conclusion feels like the existential dread that infuses the characters that make up its universe. The paradox of the game becomes painfully prescient as it draws inexorably towards its conclusion.

A sure thing for any GBA owner and makes for an above-average multiplayer racer.

We're tempted to overpraise "Viewtiful Joe" because it looks so damn cool, and because it's not another cookie-cutter sequel or retread of a tired franchise. It looks like most game reviewers are falling over themselves to praise the game to the stratosphere, but here at "X-Play" we tell it to you straight. So here's the verdict: Viewtiful Joe is very good.