I suspect this game would be a lot of fun for ten-year-olds, but what do I know? I plan to give out condoms on Halloween.

If you already have played through this game on another system, the new controls probably aren’t enough to warrant a new purchase, as they are the only new addition. But if you haven’t had the 07 version, and are a Wii-control fan, this is a must have for the Wii.

The best puzzle game of this past year. It’s fun and dangerously addictive.

The gameplay is faster than ever before, and taking the Hyperdimension cast and plopping them into a mini-Dynasty Warriors game works surprisingly well.

If you played through Dead Rising 2 and you're not particularly enthused about Frank, the reason to look at Off the Record is to spend a few days with a friend bouncing around the mall in Sandbox Mode. I wouldn't recommend this on any other basis, but that's pretty much enough on its own.

Wolfenstein is a mediocre title from a franchise known to be innovative and exceptional in their offerings.

It's not quite up to the level of Interplay's "Virtual Pool" series, but Maximum Pool more than holds it's own.

It doesn’t really feel like an expansion pack. It feels more like a library of useful things for modders and scenario designers to play with.

The best Resident Evil title to date for the PC. The simple reason for that is the improved gameplay, particularly the enhanced puzzle elements and the addition of Nemesis and the game-altering choice screens he brings with him.

Both games sound really good, however. Plenty of digital dialogue clips were recorded for each character in the games. All the sound effects of the originals have successfully made the jump to the PS2.

If you don't take Anarchy Reigns seriously, it's worth a look, and it's got a nice discounted price tag to boot. It's a big, colorful, ridiculous brawler about a bunch of cybernetically-enhanced idiots who don't realize how ridiculous they are, and while the single-player campaign's about five times as frustrating as it needs to be, the multiplayer's decent once you get a handle on it.

Just Cause 3 is the game for you, so long as the game you’re looking for is almost exclusively about bending the laws of man, nature and physics until they break for comedic effect.

Fallout Shelter is an interesting game until you reach the fifty dweller mark. After that, the game gets easy and monotonous.

The bottom line here is with Diablo 2 ten years behind us and Diablo 3 still off in the distance somewhere, being a mediocre version of the great one is almost a compliment. Almost. And Sacred 2 almost succeeds in its imitation.

Most of the game is actually pretty fun, although the loading times are damned long for a downloadable title. It's a colorful, violent cartoon with some of the best music of any game this year. It's simply that any time a boss shows up, I want to go play something else.

The control scheme and the dependency on rote memorization, not to mention the immense difficulty level diminishes the quality of the game.

Mega Man Legacy Collection 2 may not be the best bang for the buck in the history of the franchise, but it does still offer up the definitive way to play Mega Man 7, 9, and 10 – with the PS1 version of 8 being replicated better here than in prior compilations. Extras like an art gallery and the OSTs being available for all of the games are nice perks, and offer up more out of game value than prior collections to be fair. The controls are spot-on as are the graphics, with audio emulation being perfect. It’s a great buy for anyone who loved the series before – or might have missed out on the latter-day classic entries.

A rare piece that finds a balance between making time travel believable and time travel a necessity to the plot. It is intelligent and thought provoking in a way that it doesn't insult the audience's acumen.

The engine is a lot of fun, but the campaign is a disaster, and it appears that Altar Games hasn’t learned anything since releasing UFO: Aftershock two years ago.

After a few years of steady improvements, WWE '12 marks the end of that era by delivering the worst overall game in years. It does a few new things relatively well, but really messes up some things that were done very well before, like the Road to WrestleMania mode, backstage fighting and the object interaction from last year's game.

Megadimension Neptunia VII is the best entry in the franchise to date.

It’s a great-looking game that could use some work in the soundtrack department, but is well worth a pickup for fans of light-hearted adventures even if you weren’t a fan of the Borderlands franchise.

Overall, the Amazing Spider-Man succeeds at offering a great story, but fails at accomplishing its goal of making you feel like Spidey.

Double Dragon: Neon hits more than it misses, and is a must-buy for anyone who loved beat-em-ups in either the late '80s or early '90s. This game was made for the 25-to-30 crowd, and is right in my wheelhouse as a result. If you loved that time period either literally or ironically, you'll find something to enjoy with the game's sense of humor.

Isn't the greatest expansion pack around. However, it only costs $20, and although it only has 12 quests, those quests should give you 50 hours or more of gameplay.

The overly simplistic gameplay, re-hashed visuals, unbalanced level design, and generic storyline all factor in to make this hybrid of yesteryears best selling, finest games, a low rent middle class knock off. Nevertheless, the sheer visceral excitement of blowing stuff up and witnessing ultra-violent, unapologetically brutal cut-scenes and road rage is hard to deny.

Nothing more than your run-of-the-mill platformer. Though the level design and beautiful visuals are something to admire, the audio, plot and general lack of originality leaves something to be desired.

In the end, Legends of WrestleMania fails to completely live up to its potential, but does provide a fun experience for a short time.

As an action title, it’s decently presented, albeit repetitive, and has a creative control scheme, although not fully implemented.

In all, Heretic Kingdoms does more new things in one game than I’ve seen in the last dozen games I’ve played combined. That’s a good thing, and it almost makes up for the game’s technical problems.

Getting Up is a solid game, but not spectacular in any way outside of the tagging interface. It also does a lot of things well, but features a disturbing amount of product placement that takes you right out of the adventure while also needing some fine-tuning with its controls and camera.

Red Faction: Armageddon delivers on its promises, even with the uneven level design, soap-opera storyline and bizarre objective choices. The sheer fun to be had with the game's fascinating weaponry and visually stunning scenes of destruction is what makes the series so popular to begin with, and in this respect it is worth every penny.

From what I understand, Ino-Co is going to add more campaigns and missions in the future, and so possibly the game will eventually work well and be worthwhile if you stick with it. But in the meantime, I wouldn’t really recommend Elven Legacy unless it receives a bargain bin price and you really like tactical strategy games.

This title would have been better if the design was more polished and the controls were more sophisticated.

The maps are definitely more professional and imaginative than your average third party mod. But the most tragic thing is the sad reality that those who don’t keep up with the official EA packs may find themselves in minority once the second booster pack comes out.

I think the game would have been much better off concentrating on two or three well developed ghost stories rather than the dozen or so passably interesting ones that are in the game now.

So I guess I’m still looking for that perfect old-school D&D experience, something that pays homage to the way those games used to play while at the same time integrating some newer gaming facets to smooth over the roughest edges and sharpest corners of the old gaming world. M&MX is not that game.

If you’re an Elder Scrolls fan who has always wanted to play one of these games in co-op, this is the next best thing, at least for the time being. However, if you’re looking for Skyrim: The MMO, this will likely disappoint.

It would've been nice to see more cars, deeper customization, or tighter controls, but FlatOut gets the job done. It's solid with friends, but falls pretty short for solo fun.

One of the few things that can be said about BloodRayne 2 is that it's a nice looking title. The character model for Rayne looks extremely detailed, as do the character models for some of the main enemies.

The create a soldier mode that is dependent upon your skill with activities is a fresh spin to the player generated fighter, and the inclusion of RPG-esque elements take the rather tired elements from "Dynasty Warriors" and injects new blood into the genre.

A little boring. There are only two towns and two dungeons in the game, there is absolutely no story to drive things along (when I got to the end boss, I didn’t even realize who it was), and the quests are a joke.

In their time, many of these could be considered great titles, but there’s nothing new here. There’s old here. There’s some very old here. Some very, very old here. If they had done something, included another Generals expansion packlet just to give me the inkling that perhaps they had put some work into this collection rather than just stuffed it into a box, I might be more favorable towards it. But they didn’t.

The inclusion of half-hearted simulation elements and toned down arcade gameplay result in Blitz Pro turning into a watered down shadow of its former self. Hopefully next year’s version will restore some glory to this now tarnished franchise.

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.

Purists of the comic should take heart, because the infamous sonic clap and ground smashing jump are included, along with a number of other moves that take advantage of his fury. In fact, attacking builds up a rage meter, which allows you to boost your damage or unleash a super-powerful attack towards your enemies.

If you don’t have PS+, then definitely wait for it to hit $20 or so since this is going to be a love it or hate it kind of experience.

It never hits its stride, never find that sweet spot that makes for that great edge-of-your-seat survival horror experience.

Beyond the graphics, Enclave isn’t particularly anything special. The plotline is such a shallow hash that you don’t end up feeling anything for the characters, which are unlikely to evoke the sort of empathy (or major motion pictures) of, say, Lara Croft.

Mediocre.

A solid step forward for what a video game is capable of. If nothing else, it's definitely an attempt to do something new, and that alone is worthy of support.

The inclusion of half-hearted simulation elements and toned down arcade gameplay result in Blitz Pro turning into a watered down shadow of its former self. Hopefully next year’s version will restore some glory to this now tarnished franchise.

It doesn't offer nearly the same social experience as the console version, and you will have to learn to find a comfortable, still position to play the game in, but if you can work past those initial issues, you're in for a rockin' good time.

So if you're a patient player who doesn't mind kicking around puzzles for long stretches of time, you might have some fun partnering up with Sherlock Holmes during this adventure.

It'd be a little more worthwhile if an arcade-perfect Metal Slug 3 had been included in the collection, but this is still a must-have for those of us who fondly remember our local arcade.

But Warlock is colorful and entertaining, and it's budget-priced, so as long as you can stand some bugs and quirks, and as long as you don't mind that it doesn't break any new ground, then Warlock might be a game for you to consider, perhaps after waiting for a patch or two to come out first.

TimeShift is perfectly adequate for killing a few hours, as a rental perhaps, it never elevates itself from merely okay, and if you only buy one shooter for the holidays you can do much better than this.

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

Story issues aside, EVE: Valkyrie is an excellent game and the most-polished of the bunch for the PlayStation VR’s launch lineup.

I wound up loving the downloadable version of Daytona USA. If you grew up playing it in its heyday, or enjoyed it as Sega Racing Classic recently, definitely give it a shot. For $10 on XBLA or $7 on PSN for a limited time, you'll be able to play one of the finest arcade racers whenever you want against anyone in the world.

Medium is definitely the most ambitious project of Bloober Team, albeit it cannot completely avoid the moniker of an “AA” production. The visuals of both the real and metaphysical worlds are of high quality, the story keeps the interest high and the music is the glue that holds firmly together the whole experience. If only it tried to offer more depth in its overly simplistic environmental puzzles and gameplay in general.

It's not the most ground-breaking FPS to come along, but gamers looking for a retro-like FPS experience are in for a treat with The Nightmare Child.

The thing that ultimately forces me to give it a low rating is how damnably short it is – the game ending just as you are starting to get involved in the plot.

It’s a throwback to C&C: Generals, which was one of my favorite RTS games of all time, but lacks the fun of that campaign and the kind of cartoonish feeling that infused that entire series so successfully.

Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light will appeal to fans of the classic, old school RPGs, but is likely to turn off casual or veteran fans of the series.

The idea of a zombie-apocalypse “Metroidvania” set in what used to be a modern city is an excellent hook for a game, but Zombi is too busy showing off Wii-U features that aren’t there anymore to fulfill that premise.

Voyage just isn’t creative enough or fun enough to make it a worthwhile purchase, and so I wouldn’t recommend it. Adventure game developers like Kheops Studio would be much better off making fewer, more interesting games than in cranking out multiple titles each year.

Dungeon Siege III doesn't reinvent the wheel by any stretch of the imagination, but if you're into these sorts of D&D style, loot collecting, hack and slashers, then it's definitely worth a look. For me though, I ended up disappointed. While the game can be fun, the surprising linearity, terrible camera (both online and off), uninteresting (and seemingly uninterested) characters, and the lack of a New Game + mode made this dungeon crawler feel like a lost opportunity.

Though this game is a visceral and grand experience, I can't get away from the fact that it was supposed to be a free pack-in, and instead they've slapped a $50 price tag on it. It would've surely been the best pack-in of all time. As a stand-alone retail game, I can still recommend it, but only for fans of the NBA Jam series.

Offers many new things for people to do, and that, combined with solid visuals, makes the expansion pack lots of fun to play.

They're done very well too, but in a day and age where people are accustomed to gravity defying Matrix-like moves that spin the room around in 360 degrees -- these basics look a lot less appealing than they ought to be.

The disparity, however, between this title and the great classics that LucasArts used to create is too great of a void to disregard.

If you’re a dyed-in-the-wool Fire Emblem fan, this might also hold your attention. As far as I’m concerned, though, this game just isn’t for me. I find the sacrifice mechanic more frustrating than fun.

The Game Boy Advance version scores 73%.

But overall, the first episode of Minecraft: Story Mode felt like a disaster to me, which is why I’m hoping that it’s because I don’t know anything about the game it’s based on.

A challenging game that is a little rough around the edges in some ways and the audio is a big overall step down from past games. However, the overall experience is a must for anyone who enjoyed prior games in the series, or even the Wii Sports Resort flight mini-games.

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?

The RPG elements are far from groundbreaking, but they provide a very entertaining quest structure that serves as the game's backbone. After that, it's up to you how you want the game to play out, and it works very well. The total package is a lot of fun, and hell, you get to be a pirate.

Something could have been done on the developer's part to reach out to this target audience and indeed, to the audience that needs to be introduced to Romance of the Three Kingdoms; something that AOE excels at. If you can get past this threshold, there is a gem underneath, if only a little unpolished.

One of the few adventures I’ve played where the story is more interesting than the puzzles. What I just said could be considered a left-handed compliment, since it could simply mean the puzzles are awful, but the puzzles in the game are fine – if not exactly frequent.

I kept thinking how this game might be better if it was turned into a behind the plane action game; like the old "Afterburner" or the Xbox Airforce Delta Storm.

Years from now, No Man’s Sky will be on the books as the game that shifted the paradigm of console gaming as a whole, but only on a technical level. It is not too late for that to change, however, as Hello Games has a lot of opportunities to improve what they have created, should they choose to continue to develop it.

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

Were the tracking of physical movement a bit sharper, the length of the game a bit longer or the number of tricks a bit deeper, this would be a phenomenal title.

The best multiplayer experience on the Xbox since "Steel Battalion: Line of Contact," and so far, minus the awesome controller, it puts that game to shame.

Overall, I find JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure very hard to recommend for most people. If you’re buying it because you loved the Capcom classic and don’t really like the license, then avoid this game.

If you're looking for something different, then Asura's Wrath is unique enough that it's worth a rental, but I can't justify spending full price for a game that's literally as long as the movie it's so desperately trying to be.

Visually, this is a massive disappointment given what the Xbox One is capable of.

What you wind up with when all is said and done is a neat little chunk of Star Wars fiction wrapped up in a mediocre action game package.

ParaWorld doesn’t have the same production values as those Blizzard titles, but it still provides an enjoyable experience, and you can probably find it for under $30, and so it’s an easy game to recommend.

This game is good. It had a lot of potential and succeeded on a few fronts.

Purists of the comic should take heart, because the infamous sonic clap and ground smashing jump are included, along with a number of other moves that take advantage of his fury. In fact, attacking builds up a rage meter, which allows you to boost your damage or unleash a super-powerful attack towards your enemies.

The target audience Konami will undoubtedly wow will be the 'art house', foreign film loving type who mope around at Cannes. That's the type of gamer, especially those enamored with overseas story-based RPGs, who will be able to appreciate this.

Overall, Ridge Racer Unbounded is a great game with some fairly annoying problems that drag it down. The good news is I think they're all issues that could be addressed with a patch - the bad news is I don't know of one coming out, which means that while this game is worth your time, I don't quite think it's worth full-price in its present state.

The scenery is dull and repetitious, and the monsters are slow and stupid, coming at you a few at a time to be dispatched easily when a serious bull rush might actually cause you some trouble.

One of the few things that can be said about BloodRayne 2 is that it’s a nice looking title. The character model for Rayne looks extremely detailed, as do the character models for some of the main enemies.

Red Faction: Armageddon delivers on its promises, even with the uneven level design, soap-opera storyline and bizarre objective choices. The sheer fun to be had with the game's fascinating weaponry and visually stunning scenes of destruction is what makes the series so popular to begin with, and in this respect it is worth every penny.

Crackdown 2 is a tough game to score because while it has a lot of flaws, it is very fun. I can see the Xbox Live-only stuff giving people months of enjoyment out of it, but unfortunately, the limited campaign mode relegates this to rental-only status for anyone without the ability to make use of those modes.