Targeted at the younger audience, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is a decent game overall, but it doesn’t live up to the potential and grandeur of the Harry Potter legacy.

So on the whole I'm unpleased with Gothic 4. It's a wonderful graphics engine with an adequate combat system hampered by dull quests and a lack of action. More action would have put them into the action RPG realm, which I personally think is somewhat under-populated on the PC platform. Of course, more mainstream RPG fans are going to be turned off by the lack of common RPG elements. You'll likely be better off picking up Dragon Age on the discount rack if you, like me, haven't played it yet.

Despite the much talked about three unique campaigns, this is a game that puts its multiplayer in the spotlight, but there's very little innovation and even less of a reason to choose this game over the myriad of better online experiences out there.

The main thing going against this title is that it lacks any kind of satisfying conclusion to all of its mayhem, and isn’t close to being fleshed out enough for most players to care.

The premise and execution is solid and entertaining.

It's way too easy, its puzzles are so shallow as to be nonexistent (the "hacking" puzzle is almost embarrassing), it's got some pretty serious camera issues that could've been solved by anyone who's ever played a third-person action game before, and its stealth component simply isn't worth bothering with.

Need For Speed The Run is a good racing game that I was hoping would be great, and instead wound up being greatly hurt by its difficulty and lack of content. It's disappointing to see a Need For Speed game that isn't worth full-price and really is better as a rental, but that's the case here. The Run mode can be beaten in a day, and there simply isn't enough other content here to warrant a full-priced purchase. It's a short-lived, but incredibly exciting thrill ride that I'd recommend paying $30 or so for if you must own it, but not $60.

A lack of tactile speed, a complicated upgrade system and a number of useless features makes SRS much more of a rental for hardcore driving fans only than a must have.

If you're looking for something new from Heroes Chronicles, I'm afraid you'll be disappointed. Conquest of the Underworld doesn't offer any unique units, no new sound bites, no improved presentation, nothing. It's more of the same.

Combat is where the most distressing gameplay fault emerges. There is essentially no friendly AI so if your character is hit, he/she will not return fire, much less find a place to hide or run away from the threat. This makes for tedious micromanagement.

In comparison to South Park Rally, probably the most recent PC arcade racer, Wacky Racer isn't all that bad, but that's not saying much. Wacky Races could and should have been better on the PC.

More could have been done with this game. A little more creativity, a lot more programming, and I believe they could have had something quite good on their hands.

If you liked the movie, you'll probably like the game, as it's a near-perfect blend of classic gameplay with the production values and design of the film.

Initially fun, but it wears out its welcome pretty quickly.

For fans of the series or for fans of fantasy/adventure games in general, I can recommend this game. If that’s not your cup of tea, however, this is not the game to draw you in, because of the number of issues.

While Level 5 certainly has some must-have games in their dossier, White Knight Chronicles isn’t one of them. Its blend of JRPG and MMORPG mechanics may be innovative, but it isn’t very fun, and its plot isn’t good enough to outweigh the many glaring problems with its gameplay.

As it stands now, Biomutant is a flawed, but super-fun game that is well-worth picking up as long as you come into it with an open-mind and are prepared for an experience that may not top the charts visually, but offers a fun blend of combat that can’t be found anywhere else.

Its gameplay, stripped of challenge or context, is the same kind of switch-flipping, bomb-planting, key-hunting FPS we've been playing for years, with intensity-in-ten-cities combat to conceal the lack of innovation. It's slightly above average, but only slightly, and can be enjoyed on that level.

If Telltale can figure out a way to weave together all of the possible branches in the story to create a second season (and beyond), then that will hopefully make all of the doom and gloom from the first season more worthwhile. But if Telltale has painted themselves into a corner, and this season is it, then I wouldn’t recommend the game at all, unless your idea of fun is getting punched in the face repeatedly.

In a season of really great shooters, Kane & Lynch is pretty much a dud. It’s sort of a style over substance kind of game, except the style isn’t even terribly impressive. The substance, what there is of it, amounts to a fairly so-so action game that’s kind of short.

A fun game, but fans of this type of game might be best to either break out their dusty Super NESes or N64s and play one of the Mario Kart titles ... or wait until "Mario Kart: Double Dash!" comes out for GameCube.

It's way too easy, its puzzles are so shallow as to be nonexistent (the "hacking" puzzle is almost embarrassing), it's got some pretty serious camera issues that could've been solved by anyone who's ever played a third-person action game before, and its stealth component simply isn't worth bothering with.

The heart of RTS games is all in the maps and how well your enemy plays them.

And then there are all the crash bugs, and the easily broken quests, and Pirates of the Caribbean just isn’t a lot of fun to play.

It's not badly done action. I only wish it was arranged better. Not in need of more explosions, not utterly boring and certainly not bad-looking; it's just, regrettably, dry.

It’s too short, too flat, and too plain.

And so, obviously, Murder in the Abbey (or just The Abbey, as it is known in Europe) is an adventure game to skip.

There is some fun to be had totally ravaging towns and cities, and, what the heck, it’s only $20. But if you’re looking for a game that’ll be more than a weekend fling, look elsewhere.