Ultimately, there is about a day's worth of gameplay in Blackthorne, and even on a Sunday, a good player could finish and still probably fit in church, lunch, dinner and maybe even football.

It's fun, but a shallow fun, based on shallow characters – maybe the perfect game for the kids from "Clueless" or "The OC."

Shadow the Hedgehog has a couple good ideas that are ruined by sorry gameplay. What happened?

In terms of gameplay, it truly doesn't get any simpler than this, nor the pace more frantic. It's a fragfest to be sure and if you can dig that, you might find Painkiller: Hell Wars to be a fitting end to the Xbox era.

The decision to move away from what has made the series so great and toward the simulation style is a questionable one. Fans of the series will be upset with the omission of the cop chases, illegal racing, and overall shady mood.

FRL isn't worth its $50 asking price, but might be worth a purchase from Ferrari die-hards just to race in so many cars throughout the company's history. Everyone else will likely be satisfied racing in many of the company's most popular cars in other, more exciting racing games.

Certainly a riveting storyline could be the salvation for those who are not enamored with the Robopon concept. Unfortunately, the one included in Robopon 2 is merely functional.

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

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

It can be a great service to fans of Fantasy Battles and medieval warfare in general; the issue is that it demands a perfect storm of circumstances to fully enjoy it.

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.

I love the color. I love the creativity. I love the intensity and the barely controlled mayhem. But over it all, there’s no denying that Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands is more or less a glittery skin thrown over Borderlands 3. As a DLC maybe (and when I told some of my friends that I was reviewing Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, several of them asked, oh, is that the new Borderlands DLC?) something limited to the 10-15 hour or less realm (and the $20 or less price tag), this might work. But as a new thing, that really isn’t anything different from the old thing, Gearbox really needs to find something to freshen up this formula, and I don’t mean top-flight voice talent.

Tales from the Borderlands is a fun interactive movie, but it could do with a little more player input and less linearity.

A pretty lightweight expansion pack, and what it does include isn’t especially interesting or memorable.

While 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.

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.

There are some great elements and firefight sequences in Conflict: Vietnam but you just don’t see them enough. And when you do, it’s sometimes offset by other factors that ultimately mire Conflict: Vietnam’s better traits into gameplay quagmire. Instead of an exciting battle, you find yourself slogging through the game.

The gameplay throughout has taken a back seat to the titles aspirations, and since a good deal of those aspirations do not quite pan out an outright purchase cannot be recommended. Fans of the previous titles will want to give it a Saturday's rental, however, if for no other reason than try to bed-down a peasant girl and possibly contract something nasty (no joke).

I realize this has been a fairly short review (especially by my standards), but frankly there just isn’t that much to say about PES 2014. It feels like a slightly shinier version of last year’s installment.

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

Right now, there’s way too little here to recommend a full-price purchase to anyone. Die-hards should only buy it when it hits the $20-30 range, and everyone else will likely be satiated by a rental. What’s here is done quite well, but there just isn’t enough of it.

With extremely linear gameplay, a relatively flawed fear mechanic and basic combat system, Batman really isn't breaking a sweat in this title.

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.

Crystal Bearers is a fun game for the short time that it lasts. Though I was very excited about the game, the camera and pacing issues detract from the game’s overall appeal with little to no replay value. It’s worth a rental for fans of the series but those new to the Crystal Chronicles series would feel more satisfied playing the Gamecube original and earlier DS instalments.

It actually felt more like a long DLC than an immersive game world.

Intermittent AI detection, graphical issues that affect core gameplay and length issues truly diminishes the impressive nature of this game. What’s worse, Gamecube owners are deprived of the multiplayer mode, which extends the value of Pandora Tomorrow greatly.

If you're willing to learn its patterns and work to counteract them, it offers a challenge that's quite unlike any other game on the market these days. It's occasionally frustrating, yes, but it is, at least, frustrating in a new way.

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.