If handheld racing is your thing, this rally title should be near the top of your list.

The customizable difficulty settings make for an entertaining arcade racer, while the detailed career mode and tuning garage give gearheads plenty to tinker with. Ratbag has produced another outstanding sprint car simulator.

It offers the perfect style of gameplay makes for those who want to jump online and play an hour or so, then get back to their life.

NFL 2K5 has leveled the field of play significantly with its wallet-friendly price and killer presentation.

Crimson Sea 2 has sharp, exhilarating gameplay and a distinctive style that pervades the story line, characters, and space-opera soundtrack. The variety found in the missions is truly commendable, and you're generally free to play the game at your own pace.

It's true that it won't make you forget "GoldenEye 007", but it's the closest a Bond game has come to that level of quality in years.

A game with a long life span. Colorful imagery, creative levels, and a good score add to the experience.

Players who were burned by last year's NASCAR game should feel quite a bit better with 09. Although I personally miss the "Total Team Control" feature from a couple of years back, the new Rep and Career mode is compelling enough to keep you coming back for more. Solid graphics, solid racing, solid features.

While it has a few issues (namely the lack of analog stick hitting/pitching) that keep it from being the hands-down, across the board best baseball on the market, MLB 09: The Show does just about everything else it can to give players a challenging, rewarding and realistic baseball experience. It looks incredible, plays smoothly, and offers enough on field and off-field goodies to please/occupy baseball fans for a long, long time.

May not be the perfect ninja sim, but it's a ton of fun, and that's far more important than some minor flaws.

The toolset is immense but you're not required to use every feature to make a basic track. The familiar, albeit modified LBP user interface will make it easy for longtime fans to hit the ground running.

It’s half a step behind EA’s "March Madness," but with a $20 price tag ESPN College Hoops 2K5 costs less than a hot dog at the Final Four.

A good jumping-off point for a whole new story line in the vein of the original series, and offers just enough new mechanics to make it worth a play for both fans of the series and Onimusha virgins alike.

The combination of stunning graphics and frenzied gameplay make Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner a must-have for anime RPG fans or, heck, anyone with a functioning pair of eyeballs.

A fine example of what video games do best. They give players a sense of time and place that is unmatched in any other medium. In United Offensive you are there. And even though it’s short, it’s a great ride.

Setting PRD apart from other games in the genre, the AI is intelligent, responsive, and unforgiving. Seeing a group of opponents jockeying for position as they approach a bend is not uncommon. Players must earn every win, as the AI cars will take advantage of every mistake.

Even after getting all the initial enjoyment out of the game, Pure is still definitely fun to pick up for short, satisfying bursts of speed.

Buildings are built noticeably faster now. Especially huge projects like the airport. Now there is a random damage element courtesy of the elements themselves, occasional storms will pass through and they can put a final nail in your faltering economy, or at least slow down a burgeoning one (this feature is optional).

An improvement on the original, and the new environments add a considerable level of depth. Fans of the series will also appreciate the tweaks to the character development system, like the two new classes and special abilities.

A handful of tracks will have you scratching your head, wondering why they were included, but you’ll forget all about that once you’re centerstage, and the beat drops for Michael Jackson’s “Beat It.”

Great dialogue, visceral, vicarious violence, and a well-realized first-person experience might make you wish you could serve a little more of your sentence.

Problems with the camera and controls hold it back from mass appeal, and unless you have the broadband adapter, you're missing out on a large chunk of the experience. With that said, there's definitely enough here to for serious players to enjoy if they're willing to devote the time necessary to really dive into the game.

Refined, entertaining, and simple, it's a refreshing change of pace from most of the more violent, dark themes that tend to hound games lately.

Star Ocean: Last Hope won’t make anyone forget that FF XIII is on the horizon. But as far as holding us over in the meantime, this game more than succeeds.

It features a tighter back story, a more streamlined and interactive combat model, the ability to play the game the way you want to play, and best of all, does so in an easy to understand, even friendly manner.

It's a living, breathing example of the Xbox's graphical prowess and a lesson in accessibility for novice gameplayers as well as the more experienced.

Given the open-ended nature of the series, most hard-core fans will enjoy investing their time here acquiring elusive ingredients and perfecting their hocus pocus, while casual fans will get a kick out of the chaos they can cause spending a few hours playing around with it.

Just as Diablo recreated the sheer joy of finding fifty bucks on the sidewalk, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates rinds and nails a perfect loot-rinse-repeat rhythm.