Kane and the battle against the Strogg are handled nicely, and there's enough direction placed in the story to accurately host an expansion pack (which you can probably bet will be on its way next year).

Features a bundle of high points to turn any casual player of chess into a pro.

While Rivals isn’t a perfect racing game, it does manage to fulfill that adrenaline rush that speed junkies crave on a regular basis. With plenty of game modes and tons of upgrades, players will have lots of replayability in their hands.

You have a choice of either settling for a less attractive game on an older system, or paying more for a title that's lacking in features, but has awesome graphics.

They simply traded realism for a little wreckless abandon. If that’s music to your ears, we can finish the paperwork in my office. If you’re driving solo though, you might want to lease before you buy.

Battlefront II is also a great way to recreate those childhood fantasies of being smack in the middle of Hoth, Mos Eisley, Dagobah and the like, but in order to really experience the fun the game can offer you will need either a bunch of friends to play with or an Xbox LIVE account.

All in all this is a great game with solid gameplay, beautiful worlds, tons of customization, and an excellent multiplayer component.

Shox has such a simple, intuitive concept that anyone can get into and enjoy, but the gambling, damage models, and relative ease of the game can contribute to slight boredom after a while.

The graphics are superb, and although they may not have the photo-realistic quality and poly-count of EA's Superbike 2000, they have a style of their own. They remind me more of the SEGA arcade games (electric blue sky, sunlit sandy beaches), or the Need for Speed series' diversity in tracks.

All in all, the entire gameplay experience is a recommended one.

Yet, even with newly included character classes, new gameplay features and a cleaner online system, the fact still remains that Return To Arms is a title with relatively few advancements within the formula.

They created an amazing combat system, they designed a respectably interesting and diverse world to explore, they packed said world full of quests, they created a hierarchical spell and item system, and they wrote a ton of dialogue. But like a jigsaw puzzle that’s created one piece at a time, when all of the pieces are finished, not all of the edges line up correctly.

Aside from some AI and multi-player issues, Split/Second should please any racing fan, but will definitely find a home with Burnout fans as this game has that series' sense of complete anarchy, but with a twist that hasn't been done before in the form of the power plays.

Easily the most fun you'll have singing outside of the shower, Karaoke Revolution Party takes the next logical step for the franchise and delivers what's probably the strongest showing of the series yet.

Shadows: Awakening could use a longer power curve, or to dole out some more significant fights or abilities, to keep things from feeling stale. It’s the best possible version of what it is, but after a while, a lot of the shine wore off and it started feeling like a particularly violent part-time job. Still, if you’re looking for a new dungeon crawler, this is a pretty good one, and I did enjoy the first twelve hours or so.

While it might not have a lot that players will find in replay value, the story and in-game action, particularly those of the interrogations, makes The Punisher a title that a number of gamers will enjoy.

A fun and satisfying musical experience, it’s just a somewhat solitary one.

Trials Rising is a mixed bag of an experience that still manages to deliver a ton of thrills in spite of some flaws. The F2P mobile elements feel completely out of place, as does the awful attempt at world-building. The series CAN do plot right, as Blood Dragon showed, with over the top goofiness. This is a series of racing-related events alongside some tricks at times and the game as a whole is a physics showcase. It’s the best-playing entry in the series so far, with a lot of robust tracks, but the experience is marred. It’s a recommended purchase for veterans, but newcomers are better-served by getting one of the older and far less expensive entries to see if you like what the series has to offer.

Sacred Citadel offers up a lot of fun for beat-em-up fans, with a surprisingly high amount of depth in its gameplay making replaying stages with each character type something you’ll come to enjoy instead of dread like it many other beat-em-ups.

It plays well, and for a PS2 game it shows a lot of firepower. SCEA is doing something different with the genre, and that is always refreshing. It’s not the best looking or sounding game, but the solid gameplay and entertaining story mode make it worth the time of any fan of the genre.

A key component of Postal 2 is the ability to have fun with the premise. You can pick up a cat and attach its orifice (I'll let you figure out which one) to the end of your gun as a silencer...

It’s painfully easy and the story falls apart under scrutiny, but it still hits a lot of the buttons that make a Deus Ex game what it is.

With an emphasis on squad-based tactics, it’s equally a strategy game. It’s a little rough around the edges and multiplayer is generally forgettable, but with a poignant story, believable characters, and intense and varied battle scenes, it’s a single player experience well worth enlisting in, even if you think you’ve had enough of World War II.

If you are one who knows what the term 'powerslide' means in racers, you'll undoubtedly want to pick this one up.

From the single-player campaign to co-op and competitive multiplayer, Resistance 3 is a considerably more intimate experience. It's arguably the best installment to date, but I still think Insomniac Games can do even better.

All in all, Kinect Fruit Ninja delivers a lot of fun for $10. It's not a very in-depth experience, but for a game about chopping fruit, how much depth could there really be?

Luckily, it doesn't sacrifice gameplay for the sake of simplicity.

Looking for that perfect escape from the daily grind of supermutants, synths, railroad activists, raiders, rust devils, and Brotherhood of Steel do-gooder types who parade around the post-apocalyptic Boston wasteland like they frigging own the place? Then welcome to Far Harbor, a lovely, picturesque, stupendously highly radioactive island off the coast of Maine.

Whether The Pitt is worth your money sort of depends on how much of a Fallout 3 fan you are. All said, the new quest line will probably only take you a few hours to go through once, a few more for checking out alternate solutions, and that’s about it.

It's not easy, it's pretty funny, and you'll only rarely do the same thing twice. It's there to test a wide variety of skills, or to simply entertain those with short attention spans, and it succeeds at both.

Madden NFL Arcade is a very entertaining little game. It doesn’t attempt to be an NFL sim, so don’t buy it expecting one. The arcade feel with real NFL teams and players included is a nice combination, and at only around ten bucks this will be a great addition to your library that you can fire up and enjoy a few minutes of fast-paced arcade fun.

Online play is taken to the next level in NFL Fever 2004, in what is easily its strongest feature.

If you’re a fan of Ridley Scott’s 1979 sci-fi horror film, it’s an experience you absolutely must try.

The inclusion of nearly perfect emulations of "Mortal Kombat 2" and "3" alone make this collection worth it for any fighting fan.

It's imaginative, it controls well, and the puzzles are solid and challenging without being repetitive. It's simply that a basic weakness in the engine makes The Haunted Mansion a far more frustrating experience than it really needs to be.

VA is a great story idea, the narrative of which really succeeds, but the actual gameplay itself is a letdown.

This game certainly could have benefited dramatically from an overhaul in the graphics department, but the gameplay remains top notch. The added refinements and tweaks make for some excellent gameplay and the addition of the scenario generator will add that much more in terms of replay value.

It’s a great chapter to Torque's story, but some of the restrictions with the combat and linearity make it a good action title instead of a great sequel.

Be wary, though, as Doomsday, like its predecessor, can suck away hours to no end. And in the final analysis, that’s not a bad thing at all.

I was pleasantly surprised by what I found here. When it wasn't kicking my head in for little to no reason, Twinsanity's a fun and funny game that's well worth a few hours of your time.

Overall, Steambot Chronicles is a tremendously ambitious effort that sometimes falls under the weight of its own innovation.

A pretty fun ride. At times it really does feel like a mod, and it may have been a stretch to release this as a commercial product, but it's not a bad bet for fans of FPS.

If you were a huge Zelda nerd as a kid, or if you still are, this is probably going to be a complete and welcome nostalgia trip for you.

Arguably the best poker game on the market these days. The enhanced AI and depth of the career mode make the game more than just poker. However with the overlooks of the few visual effects, it has room for improvement in the coming editions.

Gritty wartime antics, good graphics, atrocious AI targeting all around, pretty involved missions, nice multiplayer action, generally playable, and almost utterly lost in the background haze of the other 50 FPS games that came out in the last year.

It feels like developer Awe Games worked out all of the dramatic scenes in the game, but then had trouble figuring out how to incorporate puzzles into the story, and then ran out of time before they could come up with an answer. As a result, the puzzles in And Then There Were None are equal parts laughable, bizarre, and inconsequential.

Arguably the best poker game on the market these days. The enhanced AI and depth of the career mode make the game more than just poker. However with the overlooks of the few visual effects, it has room for improvement in the coming editions.

I was pleasantly surprised by what I found here. When it wasn't kicking my head in for little to no reason, Twinsanity's a fun and funny game that's well worth a few hours of your time.

I liked Rush for Berlin and found myself returning to it many times. Unfortunately after about an hour or two, I would grow weary of the slow and repetitive progress I was making across the map.

A solid game but it doesn’t really do anything new or unexpected other than exceed as an actual good Vietnam game.

The visuals, while not at all enhanced, look good and the play control, once mastered, is silky smooth.

The sum total is a pretty decent value, and a no-brainer for anyone who enjoyed the original F.E.A.R., though that’s about as far as its appeal likely extends.

But overall, The Book of Unwritten Tales 2 is a nice adventure. It’s friendly and it’s colorful and its puzzles are of moderate difficulty.

Overall, I was mildly entertained by Sequence, with its good points making up for the repetition, and leaving a bit little left over. Sequence only costs $5 (from Steam or Xbox Live), and it might take you up to 15 hours to complete, so along with it being odd and unique, it's also a pretty good deal. So if you have dexterous fingers and a weekend that you don't know what to do with, then there are certainly worse ways that you could spend your time.

Oddly captivating in its mediocrity. If you’re a Star Wars fan, you’ll undoubtedly have a blast reliving the epic conflicts of the Star Wars universe, but at the same time you might find it a little too frustrating to enjoy and I could sympathize with that.

Caters mainly to the higher level players. For those players, I would say that GoD is the most extreme add-on for EverQuest to date, in terms of being challenging, and it’s a must have.

The good news: there’s a co-op mode. The bad: it’s limited to two players. It’s the work of the solo campaign divided in two, which may possibly be fun for you and a friend, assuming you’ve got broadband and a microphone. The ugly however: there are no publically-hosted campaigns to be found, anywhere, despite built-in GameSpy support.

MLB 2K10 is a good game of baseball. Not a great game, yet, but a good game. I will say that for the first time in recent memory, I get the sense playing this game that it does have the chance to be a great game in the next couple of years.

The gameplay is a slightly more evolved version of the MK reboot, so if you loved that, you’ll like this and the plot is compelling and pushes the T rating pretty far, so folks turned off by MK vs. DC U’s toned-down violence have nothing to fear here.

When I finished the campaign, it was with a sense of relief that I could move on to something else.

While Robin Hood isn’t a bad game, it doesn’t match up very well with "Desperados" or the "Commandos" games, and it seems curiously flat and unimaginative, especially after the slick, over-the-top feel to "Desperados."

For my money, this is a decent fighter, but the real fun here is to be had with making increasingly ridiculous characters.

Oddly captivating in its mediocrity. If you’re a Star Wars fan, you’ll undoubtedly have a blast reliving the epic conflicts of the Star Wars universe, but at the same time you might find it a little too frustrating to enjoy and I could sympathize with that.

B&W2 has funny bits and strategic bits and dramatic moments and the creature represents at points a fascinating AI with which to interact, but in terms of a game (and I know I probably use this phrase far too much) the total is much less than the sum of the parts.

Also, the production values for the game are excellent. All of the voice actors do a terrific job with their lines, which is a good thing considering how much dialogue there is, and the visuals, while not spectacular, get the job done.

Battlestations: Pacific does improve on its predecessor in several ways, but overall it just doesn’t do enough to make it a must-buy. The machines control well, but the action is just a bit slow to keep you on the edge of your seat (or couch, or Lazyboy).

Oddly captivating in its mediocrity. If you're a Star Wars fan, you'll undoubtedly have a blast reliving the epic conflicts of the Star Wars universe, but at the same time you might find it a little too frustrating to enjoy and I could sympathize with that.

A solid and entertaining mech game with an unprecedented customization system that mech-fanatics will totally get off on.

If you absolutely have no other way of playing the game, then give this a rental, and if you like it, buy it once the price has dropped and its major glitches have been patched up by Rockstar.

It's a great chapter to Torque's story, but some of the restrictions with the combat and linearity make it a good action title instead of a great sequel.

An ambitious game. But its ambition is something we saw last year. Since then, it has essentially stayed unchanged with the exception of the multiplayer component. Thus, in the final analysis, it's less refreshing than it could be.

A highly satisfying game. Despite being trapped in the same old LucasArts formula, the change of pace fighting in vehicles turns what could have been a ho-hum game into a thrilling homage to the film's end sequence.

Battlestations: Pacific does improve on its predecessor in several ways, but overall it just doesn’t do enough to make it a must-buy. The machines control well, but the action is just a bit slow to keep you on the edge of your seat (or couch, or Lazyboy).

It achieves greatness through its creation of an incredible in-game world and its atmosphere, but is held back by its problematic camera and controls.

Classic naval strategy with a twist. The entire presentation of the Classic Battleship mode could have been put together a little better, but the Arcade mode provides a solid action-packed alternative to the standard board game.

A mixed bag, pairing a genuinely frightening horror experience with gameplay that's somewhat hit or miss.

So if you’re looking for a dark and moody role-playing game that is different than everything else out there, and if you have a reasonably powerful computer that can handle the engine, and if you don’t mind adult themes that are more than a little male-centric, then the Witcher is certainly a game to consider.

My only significant complaint about the game is its perspective. The pseudo isometric birds-eye view is going to get old sometime soon.

The expansion's adventures are fun, the settings are interesting to explore and the new monsters are enjoyable to fight. Any serious EverQuest player absolutely must look into the Lost Dungeons of Norrath expansion. The hours of dungeon crawling are worth the price of admission.

Pitted against other 4X titles, the individual parts of Hegemonia never seem to glue or mesh into a compelling and cohesive whole.

If you haven’t played a lot of city-building games, then you might find CivCity: Rome to be enjoyable enough, but otherwise it’s not a game where you’d be missing much if you skipped it.

Like the movie, Wanted: Weapons of Fate is more style than substance. The game is at its best when Wesley is quick chaining cover with his ability to slow down time and curve bullets in the midst of overwhelming odds.

It's not fancy and it's not amazingly deep, but it does let you chop up an awful lot of zombies. It's entertaining for what it is.

Fireteam Bravo 3 is the best SOCOM title Slant Six Games has produced thus far, but it’s a much better multiplayer experience than it is a single player game.

With its addictive, fast-paced gameplay, smooth controls, slick graphics, and excellent soundtrack, Bayonetta is an easy recommendation for any action fan.

NFL Fever 2003 continues to look good, sound great, and play fast, resulting in a solid yet slighly unrealistic arcade football experience.

Much like EA MMA before it, this feels like a solid foundation for a better game to be built upon down the line.

The lack of sound, suspension of the rules of baseball (and at times, physics in the case of wildly curving balls) and control scheme limit the promise that this game shows.

The production values of the game are excellent, and I enjoyed returning to Jurassic Park and learning some new things about it, but the gameplay mechanics leave a lot to be desired, and the price for the game is little high given the 5-10 hours of content it provides.

A solid game and a great introduction for those who are tired of the mindless carnage in RTS titles but aren't ready to cut their teeth yet in hardcore wargaming. Those who approach this game with a cannon fodder mentality will definitely be in for a rude awakening.

Unfortunately, Charlie Murder isn’t quite able to live up to its potential. When I first saw the trailer, Charlie Murder seemed like the shot in the arm brawlers needed. Visually, it is, but the sometimes-clunky gameplay hurts it quite a bit. Still, at a mere $10, it’s hard not to recommend Charlie Murder even with its flaws.

It is impressive. Since the five-year hiatus, however, there have been others that were more so than it.

If you’re an Empire Earth addict, The Art of Conquest might be useful just for spicing up multiplayer games.

On the ice, NHL 2K8 has improved by leaps and bounds in the graphics department.

The weak artificial intelligence is beginning to show itself, particularly with Resistance's emphasis on conserving supplies and conserving personnel.

A little repetitive, and it’s lacking in strategy, and the scenarios can take forever to play.

NBA Live 09 is not a bad game. In fact, it's a relatively good game, if a bit incomplete.

It’s mostly fun to play. It takes 50-100 hours to go through the game once, and I could see playing a second or third time since the quests change slightly depending on the camp you choose to join.