A solid story, engaging gameplay and sound technical merits makes Everything or Nothing the best Bond title that’s been released in years.

In the end, if you really like online CTF style play or a good single player FPS then you can’t do much better than Tribes: Vengeance.

The gameplay gives you plenty of choices regarding progressing through a stage, and it looks good while you do so. It would've been very easy to churn out another boring murderfest, but instead we get a thinking man's game. Good showing.

Neversoft played it pretty safe with Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. It doesn’t break new ground and it didn’t need to. The existing formula has made the franchise a huge success. They did add a local co-op Career Mode, boss battles to the solo Career Mode, and a multiplayer Battle Mode. They also focused on improving the look and feel of the game with tremendous results.

Alan Wake is ambitious, occasionally funny, and distinctly memorable; like I said before, I don't regret playing it at all. My abiding impression of the game, though, is of wasted potential. We've been waiting for the next great horror game since Silent Hill 2, and this could've been it.

The game is certainly worth renting for a weekend, as the single-player campaign lasts a minimum of seven to 10 hours on a modest difficulty setting. A full purchase may depend on just how much the subject grabs you, and whether you can find friends to play online. In any case, the game is very promising for Double Fine's future.

I would recommend this game to everyone, without any hesitation. What it does well, it does amazingly well and where it stumbles, it's only ever a minor hiccup.

"X-Men Legends" on steroids. It's bigger and better.

A larger story line, greater number of options and plenty of interactive environments make this title one for any fight fans. It may not completely live up to its design, but it more than makes up for it in style.

A pretty average adventure. I think if Presto Studios made a mistake, it's that they tried to make the game too much like the original Myst. They got the look and feel right, and they created a good set of puzzles, but, like Myst, they completely ignored story elements and character interaction.

Difficulties on defense and an overpowering “icing” technique aside, NCAA Football 09 has put itself in contention for a championship season. With the addition of the online dynasty and the always-outstanding college football atmosphere, all the talent is here to make this a memorable year.

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.

While the game does address previous game issues and is a worthy successor to the previous title in its own way, it does make you wonder what the game could’ve been if it’d straddled the line between light and dark.

Just like the original game, Ms. 'Splosion Man is well worth not only your time, but also your money.

My pick for most original GBA game of 2003. The built-in light sensor coupled with a world full of dynamic environments that actually change depending on the amount of sunlight the game pak detects ensures that the game's most interesting bullet-point feature is more than just a gimmick.

For those of you who have already played Metal Gear Solid on the Playstation, you don't need to pick this up, because it's the same thing.

The real-time strategy of MechCommander and the action of MechAssault are merely two examples of how the Inner Sphere and Clan battles in the 31st century can still engage gamers.

It’s simply held back from greatness because of its lack of replay value.

This one just feels right in all the places that the console version felt old.

Odin Sphere ends up being an unforgettable game due to its graphics and unique gameplay, but ends up being riddled with some major problems and puzzling game design issues that greatly reduce the amount of fun that can be had with it.

Defense Grid takes about five minutes to learn, then slowly gives you more tools over the course of campaign mode.

This game does enough to qualify as a remake rather than a remaster, so if the slew of HD re-releases we’ve seen since the new consoles launched has turned you off to the concept of remasters, you may want to reconsider checking this one out.

I wouldn't complain if they'd given us a little more, though, but this is definitely a stellar start.

That being said, the story mode is just as long as the original and brings a satisfying conclusion to the plot, some of the new features like the sprint button and bullet penetration add a new dimension to gameplay, and the multiplayer suite is as robust as ever.

Legends II more than pays for its fifty-dollar price tag by delivering hours of mutant melee mania.

But overall, BOUT is a pleasant and enjoyable adventure game. It's funny and well written, it's colorful both in tone and appearance, and its voice acting is about as good as you're going to hear in a game. On the downside, the puzzles aren't especially complicated, and there are perhaps too many of them, but these aren't serious detractions, and I don't have any reservations recommending the game, especially at its $20 price point.

Overall, I’m a lot more positive on Watch Dogs 2 than I expected to be. It doesn’t feel like it’s entirely finished (the multiplayer’s still pretty broken, for one thing), but it’s a huge step forward compared to the first game.

An excellent game. Is it completely new? No. Is it revolutionary in some way? No. But EA has taken the core FIFA game and improved it to create the best FIFA footballer to date.

If you’ve been impressed by just the visual style, you’ll be glad to know that it’s worth buying for that at first, and then turns into an RPG you won’t be able to turn away from.

Overall, the Xbox 360 version of Minecraft is an excellent port. It lacks many of the features its PC sibling has, but those are expected to be implemented in the game's free updates. If you're looking for a fun, highly addictive way to relax and let your creativity run free, or if you want an entertaining game to play with some friends, this won't disappoint.

As far as mature-rated games are concerned, Dead Space: Extraction is one of the best you’ll play on the Wii this year.

Ultimately, the frame rate and online issues transform what could have been an incredible game into a very good game.

Minor gripes aside, welcome to basketball in the new millennium. Ballers is the title for basketball fanatics and sports fiends alike.

I'm not sure I'd buy a 3DS just for Revelations. It's not a system seller, but it's a good, solid third-party title. As an installment in the larger series, it's an interesting and hopeful glimpse of where Resident Evil is going now.

Superhot almost seems like the teaser for a Kickstarter campaign, one that I think I would support, but as a standalone game it is just too thin.

The idea of including duets in Karaoke Revolution seems like a natural one given the scope of the title itself. Hell, some of the most emotionally engaging or memorable songs are duets. However, the poor execution of the feature, along with the lack of innovation for the title, makes Volume 3 much less appealing than the previous games in the series.

Saints Row: The Third does deliver what players are looking for when they purchase the title. It can be said that the developers poured over the game design and completely removed anything that would be considered boring or tedious, and replaced it with pure amoral mayhem.

Borderlands: The Handsome Collection is a great bundle. It’s rare that we get a collection that offers such a gargantuan amount of content, so it’s in our best interest to support them when we do. If the goal was to give fans something to keep them busy up until the minute Borderlands 3 arrives, this collection accomplishes that.

As I said, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 is a more polished and better-organized version of Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08.

Eugen Systems took a lot of familiar concepts and gave them some new wrinkles. That’s good, and I’d even characterize Act of War as an entertaining game, but it’s just that those familiar concepts I mentioned are really familiar, and it just seemed like I had played Act of War before.

It may not take long to beat, but there is a good amount of unlockable missions, time trials, and a fairly entertaining versus mode to be had once you do.

There are some great new additions to 2010 FIFA World Cup and, even though it doesn’t provide the same amount of depth or online options as FIFA 10, this is definitely a game worth having in your collection.

Like the original, Shift 2 is a flawed sim but still manages to become greater than the sum of its parts. The wonky handling and annoying load times haven't been completely eliminated, while the new reduced methods of earning XP make getting through career mode more time-consuming than it should be. However, despite its flaws, the overall game is definitely worth a purchase. Not at $60 though - given the flaws and its nickel and diming of players through DLC, I'd say that it's worth paying $40 for if you enjoyed the first. Since there's no demo available, if you didn't play that one, then either download Shift 1's demo or just go ahead and buy it for the $10 or so it goes for now. Then, you'll have an idea of what to expect from this game, and if its problems don't really bother you there, they won't bother you much here.

One of the more organic MMORPG experience I've had in a long while, eschewing the sterility I usually get when I enter an online world. This game is changing and growing, even ex post facto of its release.

Options! Holy mother of baby squirrels this game has options!

Able to combine both mechanical genius and addictive magic to give you a compelling offbeat title that everyone ought to check out.

Yooka-Laylee: The Impossible Lair manages to outshine the franchise’s debut effort in every major way. The game’s design remains open to an extent, but greatly focuses in on what you need to do – cutting down on a lot of busy work. The fast-paced action feels perfect and manages to out-Donkey Kong Country the Returns series as a result of nailing the pacing that made the original DKC trilogy so addicting on the SNES. The action meshes perfectly with the lush graphics and robust soundtrack to create one of the finest side-scrolling platformers on the market today. The Impossible Lair is a must-buy for any platforming fan.

Overall, Gemini Rue is a solid effort. The story is excellent, the puzzles are good enough, and while the graphics aren't anything to write home about, they score high marks in nostalgia, and they do a reasonable job in setting the mood.

The adventure is rich and detailed, the D&D freak can go positively orgasmic with statistics, and the user community is undoubtedly going to create nearly limitless modules for the less-initiated among us to explore and experience.

NBA 2K is still the standard for basketball gameplay, and if you're wondering which title to go with this year, NBA 2K9 is your choice.

It's fun, but I'm not sure it's forty bucks worth of fun.

One of the best games I've played this year, and belongs in any former arcade rat's game library.

"X-Men Legends" on steroids. It’s bigger and better.

Top Spin 4 has been a lesson in ambivalence for me. I liked it, but couldn't overlook some of its flaws. But the truth is, Top Spin 4 is probably the best tennis game that's been made to date. It's fun to play, and pretty satisfying to blast winners and watch your opponent throw up his (or her) hands in frustration.

Overall, NCAA Football 12 is largely unchanged from last year's product – and this is not a bad thing. However, there are enough new features in the package to make it worth the money. The deeper Dynasty mode, including expanded coaching options and careers and online leagues, and always-addicting Road to Glory mode will keep you coming back for more. This is an easy recommend for fans of the series.

Its story is one of the most interesting and engaging stories (albeit dark) that I've ever seen in a video game.

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla has new stuff, at least to me, but keep in mind that I missed Origins and Odyssey and a slew of other titles. Still, it’s another AC game, at the core a lot like other AC games. If you’ve played the other 22 titles, and somehow (I can’t imagine how) want more, have at it. If, like me, you’ve missed more titles than you thought humanly possible, it’s not a bad place to jump back in. I’ve been enjoying myself. What more could you want out of a game?

Despite its shortcomings, Blur winds up being a fantastic racing game. Its kart racing innovations, razor-sharp controls, and incredibly fun multi-player modes ensure that it will be played for quite some time.

It’s been missing for a while, but the simple inclusion of the police catapults Most Wanted into one of the best racers in recent history.

If you bought the first one, save yourself the $40 and just pull out the old one again – you won’t be missing anything of consequence.

A solid, albeit short expansion to what is a great game. However, it won't serve to attract disillusioned "Rainbow Six" players.

But don't be fooled. The new content isn't overwhelming, and Shadow Magic plays almost identically to "Age of Wonders II."

A solid offroad experience. With an improved graphical presentation, solid controls and good soundtrack, ATV Offroad Fury 2 is a worthy successor to the ATV crown.

One of the worst interfaces I’ve ever seen in an adventure game.

With brisk, action-packed deathmatches online, easily controlled game hosting and clan setup, SOCOM is one of those games that the online experience was tailor-made for.

Mega Man Zero's developers hit the right note and the ensuing drama lends a sense of urgency to the action.

Darksiders could use a few overhauls to its combat system before it's a truly great game, but what's here is an entertaining series of shameless thefts.

Dragon Age II might stir up a little controversy for the radical changes BioWare implemented in the series, but many of them were done to make the game more accessible. It's still the Dragon Age many of us know and love, it's just growing up a bit. If you're looking for a fantastic adventure with incredible dialogue, vastly improved visuals and visceral combat, this game won't disappoint.

Dragon Age II might stir up a little controversy for the radical changes BioWare implemented in the series, but many of them were done to make the game more accessible. It's still the Dragon Age many of us know and love, it's just growing up a bit. If you're looking for a fantastic adventure with incredible dialogue, vastly improved visuals and visceral combat, this game won't disappoint.

The difficulty level will undoubtedly spur a few people away. It's not crazily impossible or unreasonable but it's not as easy as some of the missions presented earlier.

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.

To be honest, this is really the sequel to the original "SOCOM" that players have long been waiting for. Expanded multiplayer, larger mission maps and a dedicated single player story makes SOCOM III stand out above the infuriating missteps of its predecessor.

Online multiplayer is dreadfully slow, both in co-op and deathmatch modes, which brings an unwanted element of luck into the picture. It's shocking really considering how smoothly this game ran back in 1993 yet with all this newfound processing power and high-speed Internet, the game has the problems it does here.

If you’re a fan of the series, or have an interest in the medical genre, I can definitely recommend this game to you. If you feel that you’ve played the series out, however, then there just may not be enough quality, fresh content to pull you back.

If you’re looking for a game with a ton of depth, replayability and a solid storyline, look no further. Gladius is stockpiled with a ton of features that will appease everyone from the beginning adventurer to the hardcore strategist.

As a whole, VF 5: Final Showdown is one of those games that I think of as top-shelf, but all the secondary factors like DLC and available options for it put an asterisk next to that when it comes to recommending it to others. If you love the series, you'll get whatever amount of money you spend on it back in sheer enjoyment. If you don't, then at least try the free PSN version or XBLA demo and see if it changes your mind.

The combat mechanics – weapon feel, body point damage system, enemy AI, running and sneaking, encumbrance and fatigue – have all been simulated excellently and with real care paid to balance and playability. The end-of-civilization free for all environment is a very exciting and engrossing setting for an FPS.

I can't imagine any casual gamers getting much out of Mega Man 9. It requires and tests a skill set that you only tend to have these days if you've been playing games for the last twenty years.

Far Cry 5 is a breathe of fresh air for the Far Cry franchise. Ubisoft’s open-world design continues to evolve in mostly positive ways, granting players more freedom than ever before while presenting more engrossing story and side missions with memorable NPCs to help keep the gameplay loop from getting repetitive. If you’re a fan of Far Cry or first-person shooters in general, Far Cry 5 is an easy recommendation.

With an enhanced battle system, extra game modes, tweaked gameplay and cooperative wireless play on the DS, the game delivers on one of the single most overlooked factors in game production: fun. Space Invaders Extreme 2 is addictive and fun.

From one of the minds that brought us the Resident Evil series, The Evil Within 2 serves as a survival horror delight. It’s a jolting, excellent tale of horror and mystery with a strong story and a driving narrative, plus a multitude of side quests and sub-plots to keep even the most seasoned players engaged and thrilled. It is not a perfectly executed game by any means, but, like the original game, the flaws tend to get buried under the bloody heap of viscera and terror players will experience should they decide to pick up a copy.

As sequels go, Bloodshot is sort of a mixed bag. Chances are if you liked the first Condemned you’ll like the second, even if it doesn’t pull it all off with the same panache.

The gameplay gives you plenty of choices regarding progressing through a stage, and it looks good while you do so. It would've been very easy to churn out another boring murderfest, but instead we get a thinking man's game. Good showing.

The game is certainly worth renting for a weekend, as the single-player campaign lasts a minimum of seven to 10 hours on a modest difficulty setting. A full purchase may depend on just how much the subject grabs you, and whether you can find friends to play online. In any case, the game is very promising for Double Fine's future.

There is no escaping the fact that Fallout: New Vegas is more or less Fallout 3. The map might be bigger, the side quests more expansive, but if you've played Fallout 3, you're not going to find anything dramatically new here.

Even if you’ve already spent hundreds of hours wandering Skyrim’s countryside, the mods available at launch provide new ways to play, new loot to acquire, new locations to explore, and much more. Skyrim Special Edition is the best version of one of the all-time great fantasy role-playing games, even if it has begun to show its age.

I wouldn't complain if they'd given us a little more, though, but this is definitely a stellar start.

Even with the technical snafus that sometimes plague Legends, this is still the best X-Men title ever produced. The Action/RPG elements are nicely integrated within an epic storyline with plenty of intrigue and a huge amount of gameplay that can take 20 hours or more to fully complete.

An excellent game, true to Fallout tradition in all respects. Unfortunately, one of those respects is a cavalcade of bugs and a product rushed to the market.

With improved graphics, better animations, and a control system that, like their commercials say, allows players to fully express themselves anyway they want, Live 2003 is unbelievably solid.

The stages are huge, well-detailed, and genuinely fun to poke around in. As far as side-scrollers go, it's high quality.

The Spyro Reignited Trilogy is a fantastic remake of some flawed games and with that comes a mixed bag of a recommendation. If you’re a series veteran and absolutely love collect-a-thons now as much as you did then, pick it up and you’ll have a lot of fun. If you’re new to the series and have access to the PS1 games via a PS1, PS2, or PS3 digitally, see if the formula is for you. As remakes go, this is a far more thorough one than even the Crash Bandicoot one and in that sense, it’s a better collection for PS1 classic fans – but the game themselves lack variety and feel a bit too similar to one another to recommend a full-price purchase right out of the gate.

Overwhelming salvaged by three of the cornerstones of the franchise, an engaging, well crafted plotline, solid premise and impressive sound values.

I found the first hour of LoG nostalgic, and the next hour tolerable, and the hours after that aggravating. The dungeon is bland and the enemies are flat and the combat interface is cumbersome – in others words, just like every RPG dungeon crawl in the 80's.

This is a decent expansion to Dishonored 2 and sets up a new, potentially interesting status quo for the series, but it takes out so much of what Dishonored 2 had under the hood that it feels a bit slight by comparison, and the few brand-new additions are heavily limited. I don’t regret playing it, but it’s hard to say more about it than that it’s a stripped-down pseudo-sequel.

Brilliantly constructed and a noble last effort from longtime Nintendo mainstay Rare.

The bottom line here is that Broken Steel is more Fallout 3, and if you’re a fan that can’t possibly be a bad thing. Like with the other DLC, the story will probably only take you a few hours to go through and then you’re left with the goodies.

As a sequel to Painkiller, spiritual or otherwise, Bulletstorm is a disappointment. The best way to approach it, if you played Painkiller, is to forget there's a link between the two games at all. Instead, take Bulletstorm for what it is: a ridiculous arcade-ish FPS with a goofy sense of humor and a talent for amazing action sequences.