But for the rest of us who don't want to make a career out of a game and preferred the new direction that "Company of Heroes" offered, Commander is bound to be a huge letdown.

The new Weapons system is a fun addition, and actually manages to make the game a bit friendlier to new players. The gameplay itself is solid, but the overall presentation is still lacking. Here’s hoping to a more robust online mode and a better use of the ESPN license in the 09 iteration.

Though it is more approachable than previous versions, Virtua Fighter 5 still takes a lot of work before it becomes fun, and sixty dollars aside, it may be too big an investment for most casual gamers.

If you like your puzzle games like Puzzle League or Meteos, then you'll want to stay clear of Picross DS. However, if crosswords or brain-benders like Sudoku is more your style, then you will love this version. It has a lot to offer and the ability to create and share puzzles ensures a long-life span.

Stalker attempts to be many things, which is a lofty and worthy goal, but its inability to deliver is a huge disappointment. It wants to be an RPG, offering you an inventory and items with modifiers, and yet has no implementation of experience, skills or adjusting your attributes. It also wants to be a free-roam, huge world, Oblivion/GTA hybrid, but comes across as having bitten off more than it could chew.

When it comes right down to it, Sid Meier's Pirates for the PSP is a good game but a bad port.

In the end, you can't help but feel that Jade Empire lost its focus in the design phase. No one element really works, no one element really stands out.

In short, Assassin’s Creed is two hours of a really good video game repeated ad nauseum for many more hours. It’s fun, but can get very boring.

The new Weapons system is a fun addition, and actually manages to make the game a bit friendlier to new players. The gameplay itself is solid, but the overall presentation is still lacking. Here’s hoping to a more robust online mode and a better use of the ESPN license in the 09 iteration.

If you already own FS2004 and have a moderate computer, my suggestion is to put the $70 towards some addons to extend the life of FS2004, and wait to see how the DirectX 10 patch fares.

Silent Hunter features countless bugs you'll find on every machine, and this is unforgivable. It's a betrayal to a loyal fanbase and a detriment to gaining new fans. Unfortunately, it's also an exact replay of what happened two years ago when Silent Hunter III shipped. Deja'vu all over again, as Yogi Berra once said.

If you like to feel you're playing a platformer with punishing boss battles, then you just may love it. If you've grown up playing American or European shooters, then you are bound to be disappointed by most of the design decisions.

Much like an orchestra with a flat brass section, Eternal Sonata strings together a great battle system and beautiful presentation to the backdrop of an out-of-tune story and lacking character development.

The story won’t leave you in tears and the gameplay doesn’t break the mold in any way, but as the first epic Japanese RPG on the Xbox 360, Blue Dragon is adequate.

The easy learning curve is something that always made the series a good bet, but with games like Skate emerging onto the scene with a more intuitive control scheme, it may be time for old Tony to learn a new trick or two.

Tomb Raider’s puzzles remain just as challenging as before, and you’ll spend plenty of time just looking around rooms trying to figure out how to move on to the next area. Thankfully they never get boring.

ZX Advent delivers a solid 2D platformer that is difficult to find elsewhere, forcing a players to rely pretty heavily on their skill to see them through. Mega Man fans will have their desire sated.

If you can get past the frustrating gameplay mechanics, Medal of Honor: Airborne can be an enjoyable experience. The presentation is fantastic and the multiplayer is surprisingly fun, but unfortunately Airborne’s new features feel like a desperate attempt to get one more iteration out of this aging series.

This is supposed to be the big racing title at launch, the game that should convince guys like me to buy this system, and it just plain doesn’t.

I was most impressed with the look of Eets. You may have seen the older PC game, and if so then you know what to expect here. The only way I know how to describe the characters is as cutesy with a serious edge. The characters, especially Eets himself, looks like you could pet him but at any moment he might just bite your head off.

Liberation allows you to play co-op with another friend, heading out together on the same boring missions that comprise the campaign.

The game does get a little repetitive, though the increase in difficulty in later levels will keep you on your toes. Multiplayer is pretty much a joke that was better left untold. It's hollow, void of much point and has all the signs of something that was added at the last minute so the box could say “Multiplayer”.

The many multiplayer possibilities should buy you a lot of time with the title, but the single-player campaign is just entirely too short (while the tutorial is mind-numbingly long).

While the gameplay is fairly easy, Starfox Command is a step back in the right direction for the franchise after the missteps during the Gamecube years.

A nice homage to the days when you had to line quarters on the rim of a cabinet just to secure your spot in line.

Players who never experienced the RPGs of the 80s are bound to scratch their head and wonder where all the graphics went.

The more you know about football then the more you'll get out of this game. There are some superb play-calling aspects on offer, like the ability to change routes on the fly for your receivers, but again, this is something only the hardcore will make use of.

I had a blast playing it for the first hour, and the next hour or two was still fun. But as time went on, it quickly dwindled into something stuck between a linear action title and a sandbox game, with neither of those done well.

Ultimately, you can’t help but feel that there’s a fantastic game in Every Extend Extra just begging to be set free, but this current incarnation just wasn’t cooked enough to be worth eating.

A few things need tweaking, mostly the funky camera which just zooms in way to close with no option to move it around. If you are looking for a fun game to pick up and play with your buddy, make sure he is a patient one and an experienced gamer.

The online play is fairly impressive, with a field of up to 11 human competitors that’s rounded out by another 11 AI opponents. The only real problem with this game is that it’s just not fun.

High Treason is a great game all around, but will most likely not gain the attention of most gamers, due to Atari’s muted response Direct Action. Without more online players, and with other competing modern-warfare RTS’s, High Treason is likely to slip under the radar, never gaining the popularity it deserves.

It’s important to stress that this game is not going to replace Wii Play on your kegger nights. SSX Blur requires a good deal of time to become competent at, and will reward you well for doing so. If you need a game that’s easy to pick up and play, you won’t find it here. What you will find is a solid evolution of an established franchise that was in need of a change.

Tries to mix up the formula a bit too much, and the results aren’t perfect.

One game-breaking aspect of The Sims 2 Castaway is the load screens. The loading times are much too long and occurs much too often.

The presentation is fantastic and the multiplayer is surprisingly fun, but unfortunately Airborne’s new features feel like a desperate attempt to get one more iteration out of this aging series. Medal of Honor: Airborne just screams of a game with lots of interesting ideas that no one actually sat down to play and decide if they were fun.

This game will provide hours and hours of enjoyment for all boring car rides and classes. Just don’t get too hooked…you’ve been warned.

The many multiplayer possibilities should buy you a lot of time with the title, but the single-player campaign is just entirely too short (while the tutorial is mind-numbingly long).

Added abilities for the multiplayer add some needed depth.

If you haven’t played this game before, chances are strong that you’ll have a good time with Beautiful Katamari. Newbies may be confused by the unique gameplay or bizarre story, but this series has a way of endearing itself to you rather quickly.

The layout of the levels is classic Hawk as well. The cities do a good job of recreating the east coast habitat they’re meant to mimic, but the dingy and gritty style makes it all look kind of ugly. In an over-the-top whimsical game like this, I’d expect a little more lighthearted style because this doesn’t exactly work.

But despite what this game has to offer it remains hard to recommend a purchase simply because of all the déjà-vu this will give you. There is almost nothing new here from the previous Tenkaichi titles, besides a ramped up character list and a couple shifts in the story mode.

Though Microsoft's Games for Windows Live is an interesting system, they shouldn't have used a poor port of Halo 2 to demonstrate it, and instead focused on creating a great new title for the PC.

A few things need tweaking, mostly the funky camera which just zooms in way to close with no option to move it around. If you are looking for a fun game to pick up and play with your buddy, make sure he is a patient one and an experienced gamer.

Frankly, Tecmo's "Super Swing Golf" has Tiger beaten, something I'm sure irritates the hell out of EA...and myself. I want a realistic golf game, and the Wii is the gateway to that goal. Well, I guess there's always next year.

Hardcore players should probably stay away, but anyone looking for a laid-back and fun time can find at least a little of that here. This game is obviously made for kids, and while they’ll have more fun with it than an adult would, there’s a little something for everyone in this package.

A huge improvement over previous versions. It's obvious EA wanted to treat the DS platform as a unique entity and not a place to dump a half-assed port. While the graphics won't be winning any awards, it's at least passable now and won't make your eyes bleed.

So if you think a very traditional RTS covered in mini-guns and mammoths, energy cannons and iguanodons sounds good, be all means, go buy Paraworld. However, if you were just excited by the peanut butter cup goodness of video games and dinosaurs, you are in for a lot more than you bargained for, and that may not be a good thing.

The controls are solid enough, but there have been so many other stellar shooters over this holiday season, I can’t see why anybody would choose this game.

When it comes right down to it this game is perfect for the newbies out there that have only heard of Cooking Mama and have wanted to try it out. But for those of you that invested time in the original game, it may be best to stay with that one, as this offers nothing new for you.

Technically very solid, with a well implemented control scheme and good enough graphics and sound, but the tedium of doing nothing more than grinding through the exact same thing over and over again really kills it.

Luminous Arc just comes across as a competent game with no single aspect that excels or attempts to push the genre forward. It's basically a generic strategy RPG that benefits from supporting WFC, though even this aspect is bare-bones. You could do worse...you could do better.

The area where the PS3 version of this game really impresses the most is in the amount of brand new content that’s been added here. There are nearly 30 new missions, 6 new vehicles, 7 new weapons and an impressive 25 new execution styles.

All of the negatives to be found in SimCity DS are terribly unfortunate as all of the elements that made SimCity a classic are here, unfortunately hampered by ill-conceived design choices and a total lack of style.

What we’ve got here is a stripped down version of a great game. It’s nothing short of a complete re-hash, but in the case of Guitar Hero that’s not necessarily a huge problem.

If you’re the type who can get behind some solid-yet-repetitive gameplay with plenty of fast paced action, EDF 2017 might be the game for you.

Tony Hawk’s Downhill Jam gets an A for effort, but a C- for execution.

The most glaring problems with the game arise in human AI and weird graphical hiccups. Human AI, sorry to say, is dumb.

Since the graphics aren’t anything special compared to the PS3 and 360 versions, the control scheme is obviously the star of this version of Call of Duty 3; and unfortunately things come out a little less supernova than we had hoped for.

If this title was offered up at a lower price or with more tables, it might be one of our favorite arcade games. As it stands, Pinball FX shook us a little bit, but not enough to TILT.

One of those rhythm games like "Guitar Hero" and "Dance Dance Revolution," minus the depth, size, playability, replayability, scope, addictiveness or polish of either of those two games. Granted, it's an arcade title, but at 800 points you expect to get a little more boom boom for your buck.

I simply found the game too age distinctive. Overall, it is a fantastic game for kids.

Quite entertaining. It’s not going to be enough to draw in new fans to this type of gameplay. Let’s face it – this is a love it or hate it genre.

There is no reason to buy this game for at least 6 months, unless you are a glutton for punishment. Hopefully by six months the majority of the bugs will be taken care of and Vanguard will resemble a game instead of a proof-of-concept.

Sudoku purists will be upset by a number of things in this game. All puzzles appear to be randomly generated, so there’s no way to track which ones you have or haven’t solved yet.

While the controls help to show a continuing evolution of how we use the Wii’s motion sensor technology, it falls far short of excellence thanks to an annoying timing glitch. All in all, you’ll have a good time with either version of this game that you pick up, but the 360 will present a more robust, challenging and rewarding experience.

If goofy, over-the-top minigames are appealing, then Virtua Tennis is the only game in town. If you happen to take the sport of tennis seriously and want more of a simulation, then Smash Court Tennis 3 fills the bill well enough. The only problem I have with both of these games is their overall refusal to advance the genre beyond what we've seen countless times before.

So while this game puts up a valiant effort to inject some life into the sometimes mundane adventure genre, it falters with a complex interface and a certain sense of hatred you will develop for the female lead.

So while this was a great opportunity to revamp an aging game and work out any flaws it had for a re-release, the company took the safe route and merely ported this over without fixing anything.

But this game is not for gamers with a low attention span. Oftentimes I found myself wondering what to do next and waiting for time to pass…in other words, slow slow and slow.

Overall, as aeronautic enthusiasts, we were pretty happy with this game. Currently it serves as the only way to use the Sixaxis as a flight controller, even if it’ kind of lame.

If you’re looking for a portable Mario Party fix, minus the Party aspect, be sure to pick up Cooking Mama.

There is a lot here to like if you're willing to look past the redundant quests and better yet, Radiant Mythology is a good entry point for newcomers to the series.

Yet one more DS game that rises above minimal expectations. It’s not a must-have by any means, it doesn’t reinvent the genre and really doesn’t add anything new, but it doesn’t come across as a half-assed attempt to capitalize on a license.

All in all, this is a great game that suffers a bit on the player-stumping side of things. But for fans of Agatha Christie? There’s no question, this is your game of choice.

It doesn't really raise the bar or set a new standard, doesn't offer anything I haven't seen before, and is unlikely to make any converts. Considering who made it, I guess we can all just be happy that it actually works.

If you've played Crazy Taxi and its sequels, then you've played this new version. It controls well, looks fine, sounds good...but it's Crazy Taxi, a game that is better off remembered instead of regurgitated.

Just like the empty vacuum that is outer space, Star Trek: Legacy pretty much just sucks. Set your phasers to “pass” on this one.

Overall this game doesn’t take any chances and it suffers because of it.

The camera seems really buggy at times. While, for the most part, it does an acceptable job of keeping the action onscreen, there’s no way to easily re-center your view and so things get confusing at times.

Jericho shows a great deal of thought put into the final product, but it just doesn’t rise above its own problems, unfortunately.

Although Final Fantasy II isn't one of the better Final Fantasy games, it's an interesting cog in the 20-year history of the series, and shows how much the series has grown and evolved since its inception.

A short, bland, and ultimately forgettable experience.

Besides the tired gameplay, Mario Party 8 has some serious presentation issues that will make you wonder if you’re still playing a Gamecube game.

The controls and goals are decidedly simple, the story is definitely classic and non-violent, but that’s not to say it’s only for younger audiences. Just about anyone can have a good time with this game, at least for a while. The Wii version is well done, and the controls feel well implemented. It’s funny, it’s fun, and it’s just plain easy to enjoy.

This is a title definitely intended for children and gives them something to pass the time with after school gets out. Mothers out there should look to this game to give them some peace and quiet time from their kids.

Balls of Fury was entertaining for a short period of time, but it does get repetitive pretty fast. Thankfully it’s priced appropriately and provides enough entertainment in small doses to justify the cost.

The final part of the game, which I won’t give away here, should have been FULL of terrifying stuff hitting fans of every size and speed imaginable, and yet… nothing. More non-paranormal enemies. It is, quite simply, the most colossal anti-climax since Halo 2.

It's just missing that compulsive factor that separates a great puzzle game from all the rest. It doesn't have that “just one more time” sensation that keeps propelling you forward. And frankly, it gets so brutally tough that you'll be hard-pressed to keep at it, ultimately moving on to some other game.

For fans of Naruto who know what the Hidden Leaf Village is or are accustom to hearing about Trigram Palm Rotations, this game can provide a deep and challenging fight.

You may be tempted to want to try to relive those memories with a game like Hot Wheels Ultimate Racing, but this isn’t the way to do it. With far more entertaining stunt driving games on the system (such as GripShift, for example), you’re better off just leaving this game on the side of the road.

[A] less than stellar adventure.

Spider-Man: Friend or Foe is a good concept and can be fun in short bursts with friends, but it simply doesn’t have the staying power to keep any but the most dedicated of fans playing too far into the game alone.

There’s more of a focus on web-based combat that shows through nicely, but it just didn’t quite do it for us. Although you’ll unlock a good deal of moves eventually, the initial experience may not be compelling enough to make you want to play through enough to get there.

Taking into account the shortcomings of the platform when dealing with this type of gameplay, RS:V pulls it off fairly well. It’s still not great, but you can have fun with it for a while if you’re not frustrated easily. Don’t, however, expect anything near the caliber of the experience that you may have already had with the far superior 360 version of the game.

I had never felt so frustrated in a wrestling game until I played this one.

Tony Hawk’s Downhill Jam gets an A for effort, but a D for execution.

There were a few moments where I felt like Pirates could actually spark my interest, but I left bored in the long run.