If it’s hockey you’re looking for, get ready to lose a few teeth and go tough it out already.

A misguided effort to streamline the experience and create gameplay where realism comes before responsiveness.

So there you have it: 2K9 comes off as a misguided effort to streamline the experience and create gameplay where realism comes before responsiveness.

Spore is the most fantastic game you’ll ever avoid playing. I can easily guarantee you will find something upsetting about the end product; the game is riddled with flaws small and large, and though there is a lot of impressive tech backing the whole product, it does not have the kind of polish we so arrogantly expect from our entertainment.

I am at a loss for something truly positive to say. As much as I want to present something, anything, positive about a product people put time into developing, I cannot. Pirates Vs. Ninjas is just a dumb idea, badly executed.

Take away all the mind-numbingly painful design choices and there may be a game deserving of the Square Enix name here, but all the extraneous material makes that nearly impossible. A game that you will soon undiscover… infinitely.

Occasional hiccups or no, having this much open-world freedom to come at the enemy any old way you see fit is just too much damned fun.

Occasional hiccups or no, having this much open-world freedom to come at the enemy any old way you see fit is just too much damned fun.

Occasional hiccups or no, having this much open-world freedom to come at the enemy any old way you see fit is just too much damned fun.

Castle Crashers really is the great co-op experience that you were hoping it would be, but because it's just so consistently fun to play and look at, it holds up as a single-player experience as well.

A shining example of what makes these games great. There is plenty of depth, and there’s no way you’ll see everything in one run-through. If you have a month or two to kill, check it out.

Has enough class to disguise the numbers game of golf, and clears enough distance left by its predecessor for an easy lay-up for next year's installment.

Has enough class to disguise the numbers game of golf, and clears enough distance left by its predecessor for an easy lay-up for next year's installment.

Bottom line: If you’re looking for deeper, goofier, more obsessive, more fan-service-oriented, more grind-those-characters-up, Japanese-wonkoid strategy than this, then you are up Shitake Creek without so much as a broken oar… and you are also one scary, scary otaku.

But sim racing fans will find it sorely lacking in key details, and arcade racing fans will find the game far too boring and long-winded for their taste.

It masks a lot of complexity in front of you without much of having a real impact, and the vague passes it makes at being a more complete baseball simulation are laughable at best.

Ratchet and Clank: Quest for Booty is a vanilla ice cream cone. It's snack-sized, relatively cheap, and is nice on a lazy summer day. But at some point, you'll probably wish it was part of a float or a banana split.

Too Human is amazingly short for an RPG, especially one that invites you to spend so much time collecting items and managing inventory.

The refinement of the animations, the character models, and accurately capturing the simulation (that sports titles do best) is missing.

More than just a straight remake, Rearmed feels like a game that really has been refined twice.

Bangai-O Spirits is one of, if not the most, fully-featured and expansive shmups ever created, but it’s absolutely unmerciful in its brutality.

For years Madden has been improving visually and adding features, but to what end? What you're left with every year is a game with a split personality: An awesome football game that's great to play with your friends or even online, but makes you want to smash your machine if you ever play against the computer.

Whether Braid is art or just an extremely well-designed game, it is one of the best games of the year.

A fantastic way to spend your time and money. It takes everything that made the first game work upon it in every conceivable way and is a prime example of the right way to make a sequel.

SCIV certainly doesn’t break any new ground, but it continues to do what it does best by providing us with some of the best weapons-based fighting action in town. The character customization is worth the price of admission, and the online game will keep you coming back for more.

SCIV certainly doesn’t break any new ground, but it continues to do what it does best by providing us with some of the best weapons-based fighting action in town. The character customization is worth the price of admission, and the online game will keep you coming back for more.

Pretty or not, no JRPG on the 360 has the edge on Spectral Force 3 in terms of gameplay. In other words, it has a great personality.

MLB Power Pros 2008 sits and stares you down from the television like a catcher who gives his pitcher bad signals.

While 1942: Joint Strike brings nothing new to its series, it’s just good nostalgic fun when you’ve got a wingman with you.

I applaud Zoo Games and SuperVillian Studios for packing a great deal of charm and humor into Order Up!, from the edgy style to the free chef hat.

While FFIV has a geriatric story and presentation - the 3D graphics and enhanced soundtrack are impressive for the DS but they still look old - its challenging battles and nerve-wracking bosses make up for it.

Fortunately, the 360 version is blessedly free of the slowdown and Civilopedia bugs that mar the PS3 version, leading to a much more relaxing experience.

Whatever the notable flaws in the PS3 version, they obviously weren’t enough to keep us from playing several times on each of the difficulty levels (although some of those brutal ‘Deity’-level solo games ended pretty damned quickly).

It’s sketched, voiced and painted for innocent little cherubs, and yet seemingly designed by little cackling, puppy-kidnapping demons.

UT3 would have been a stroke of genius ten years ago, but now is just a passable entry into a genre that has exploded since the series was first introduced. Is it good? Sure, but if your multiplayer diet is already given over to consuming much better games, there’s no reason to make the switch.

Dungeons Runners is a solid MMORPG that doesn't try to be more than it is and that anyone with a sense of humor can enjoy.

Its track list is slightly shorter, its difficulty is slightly easier, and its unlockable goodies are slightly less thrilling, but if you loved everything about Guitar Hero III despite its flaws, then there’s little reason not to grab this one as well. Just don’t expect your finger train to be rolling over the guitar as all-night-long as it did before.

Look, if you’re the type that needs to download every song for Guitar Hero, nab a godly Top 1000 slot on yet another Guitar Hero leaderboard, or fawn over the Aerosmith poster double-sided-taped onto your wall, then you’re probably not going to listen to what anyone says about picking up a copy.

You can get an exciting, if not sparse on features, shooter with Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved for half the price. You can get many more exciting, albeit more expensive, shooters on the Xbox 360 like Gears of War or BioShock. Nevertheless, if you play Commando 3, you'll probably enjoy yourself, even if it's been done many, many times before.

And I never thought another game could make "DMC"'s plot actually look less confusing. All attitude and little substance, Hellboy has his charms, but I can't recommend you do more than rent it.

It’s just a bit of, well, a waste. It begs for something more, some more substance to the charm that’s already here in spades—more under-the-hood play for those precocious kiddies, more behind-the-scenes goodies for those older kiddies-at-heart who, let’s face it, probably bought WALL-E for their own kids to play.

I guess the unkindest kick in the, uh, waste cubes is the lack of extras.

It’s a simple but elegant little package, just low-key and clever enough for regular gamers, with puzzle challenges that aren’t out of the ‘bot-claw grasp of younger fans of the movie.

It’s got some fresh, entertaining details, and though the game experience is shallow and a little frustrating, you can hop into a mortar cannon and knock down an enemy entrenchment to make you feel better.

Top Spin 3 latches onto back-to-basics tennis, focusing its full attention on the play, power, and flow of the sport. The result is fairly straightforward but strong enough for anyone to pick up and appreciate the sport for what it is.

Perpetually frustrating.

For newbies, the controls are too unwieldy, and for veterans, though they’ll get a short burst of fret-shredding (for $49.99…), stylus scraping just doesn’t compare to a life-sized Gibson controller. With all the fumbling it takes to hold the DS comfortably, you’ll wonder why you’re playing this in public.

Overall, I can easily recommend Crazy Machines 2 to parents, physics geeks, folks who enjoy intellectual challenges, and my fellow asylum refugees.

Arkanoid DS is a great old-school title, but it comes off as trying to be a hip skateboarding, Pepsi-drinking old dude that just needs to wear his age proudly.

The controls work better here than in previous games, though the camera angles can still be tricky.

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is the best in the series, the best in its genre, and the best game on the PS3.

All the money spent on royalties to have Don’s name attached to it could have been put to better use.

Like so many Hollywood Summer blockbusters: It starts with a cool idea (Hulk destroying stuff) but, from there, grinds to a halt in terms of delivering on its promise. I won't say it's a bad game, because you can get a couple hours of fun out of it running around smashing stuff, but none of it stands out as being exceptional, or even well-done.

Genuinely translating an action film is hardly done with as much effort as High Moon Studios has put into it. Although the combat suffers from a lack of refinement and complexity, it still keeps up with the vigorous pace and calculated intensity of Jason Bourne.

Genuinely translating an action film is hardly done with as much effort as High Moon Studios has put into it. Although the combat suffers from a lack of refinement and complexity, it still keeps up with the vigorous pace and calculated intensity of Jason Bourne.

No bones about it, this game is incredibly hard, and it will frustrate you to no end. The thing is, the game’s at its best when it’s pushing you to play it on expert. Ninja Gaiden 2 on easy is a bland experience by comparison, and sucks the life out of the title: It’s a chili dog without the chili; a martini without vermouth.

Grid hits all the basics just right and tops everything off with a shiny, grease-covered bow. With a little more fine-tuning and some added variety, the follow-up could easily be the leader of the arcade racing pack.

Despite some minor annoyances, Kung Fu Panda turns in a well-rounded performance with enough appeal for small and big kids alike. Diverse gameplay mechanics keep the action from dragging its tail, and bonus rewards and multiplayer wackiness lend some replay value to the adventure.

The addictive gameplay, well-rendered graphics (even on an aged system), easy control scheme, innovative cooperative features and tons of replay value make for a winner.

The addictive gameplay, well-rendered graphics (even on an aged system), easy control scheme, innovative cooperative features and tons of replay value make for a winner.

The addictive gameplay, well-rendered graphics (even on an aged system), easy control scheme, innovative cooperative features and tons of replay value make for a winner.

The addictive gameplay, well-rendered graphics (even on an aged system), easy control scheme, innovative cooperative features and tons of replay value make for a winner.

Open Tee 2 is a pint-sized yet full-sized update to the Hot Shots Golf series that challenges its PS3 brother and ultimately wins. It has all the features of Out of Bounds but replaces the horrible Mii-like online characters with a slew of customizable parts and allows you to permanently upgrade the vital stats of the entire character roster.

The game is bafflingly boring and ridiculous. The game has no structure at all, no sense of urgency, no compelling reason to exist or be endured whatsoever. The scenes play on and on and on, and the story wends down byways of no consequence whatsoever. Lost indeed.

In many respects, the game feels as though it was rushed out the door several iterations early, before they had a chance to clean up the place-holder artwork and streamline the gameplay.

Future episodes will likely have to introduce deeper gameplay, since it's easy to master Episode One. But on its own, Penny Arcade Adventures is a very solid game with a unique and refined take on role-playing gameplay that would stand on its own even without the Penny Arcade brand of humor.

The problem is that potential is not the same as value, and it's hard to recommend Age of Conan as it stands right now. In six months, however, it should be spectacular.

The sound and music constantly find the most irritating corners of your ear to hammer away. The slightly cheesy music hides behind six annoying voiceover samples, which play over and over every five seconds. Literally.

Singstar is still the best party karaoke game for the consoles, but it doesn’t quite step up to the next-generation with confidence. Instead, it steps up the Brit Pop, and that ain’t what we want. Not what we really, really want. Really.

Wii Fit is the Cliffs Notes version of exercise, and as anyone who’s ever tried a fad exercise program knows, there are no shortcuts to fitness. Nintendo obviously means well, but the balance board will soon enough end up in the same place where every other piece of home fitness equipment does: the garage sale.

But if you’re someone who’s been out of school for a while and wants to remember what it’s like to feel the sting and confusion of a mysterious grading system, or if you’re someone who desperately needs a summertime grading fix while school’s out, then by all means, check this out.

At about one-fifth of the price and length of a full-scale platformer, it's pretty, polished and fun. LostWinds is one of the most recommendable downloadable games from WiiWare.

It’s also a terrific drinking game. Just remember to use that Wii-mote strap, before you accidentally knuckle-ball your unrestrained and quite-real controller—rather than an imaginary, massless bowling-ball—straight ‘into’ the candy-colored Boom Blox world residing just beyond your thousand-dollar flat-screen TV. Trust me on this one.

It doesn’t matter if you're a fan of the movie, comics, or action games in general. Iron Man has little to offer but the pain of aneurysm-inducing frustration and disgust for the greedy underbelly of our lifestyle.

To borrow a Jedi phrase, "This isn't the revolution you're looking for." Ultimately, GTA IV ends up feeling more like an upgrade than a real sequel. Strange, considering that neither "Vice City" nor "San Andreas" received the new number designation. GTA IV has fewer substantial changes and is far less ambitious than either of its two predecessors.

To borrow a Jedi phrase, "This isn't the revolution you're looking for." Ultimately, GTA IV ends up feeling more like an upgrade than a real sequel. Strange, considering that neither "Vice City" nor "San Andreas" received the new number designation. GTA IV has fewer substantial changes and is far less ambitious than either of its two predecessors.

I like the concept of River King, the endearing characters, and even the tranquility of the landscapes, but the focus is way off-target.

The weapons can get a little overwhelming and frustrating at times, especially when you’re in the lead (and the frankly unfair brutality of the 150cc-class rubber-banding, curse-evoking A.I.), but most of what’s in place, both old and new, still makes for a romping good time, locally or globally.

With its frantic dual-screen battles in a dense little city, The World Ends With You is a surprisingly hardcore, impossibly ambitious DS title. This pint-size powerhouse might sadly intimidate a few DS owners and their Pokeymans. Don’t get scared off; put down your Zeldas and your juice boxes for two minutes and try taking on The World.

Every other rail shooter that’s been released for the Wii is better than this one. Target: Terror is unnecessarily difficult and every bit as hollow as it is ugly.

I could go on for much longer, pointing out the weightless feel of your player, the cheap and featureless last-gen graphics, the repetitive and unimaginative play-by-play banter, the purposeless customization options or the usually desolate and ultimately just as crappy online multiplayer. But that would be treating the game as if it had tried, when it’s apparent that this baller was looking to ball the pooch all along.

Maybe instead of trying to make it work with the Wii-mote, they should’ve gone with the guitar and drums. Maybe they could’ve touched up the corners on their animations, so they didn’t look so blocky.

It exudes elitism, class, and affluence at every turn. It’s a game every bit as precise and refined as the cars it replicates. But it also doesn’t forget that it’s still a game made for the grease monkey in all of us.

As it stands, though, Teenage Zombies is a mediocre game at best, offering less and less incentive and getting increasingly repetitive the more you play.

Every aspect of this game is horribly average, derivative, unpolished, or worse. Half-assed, floaty, imprecise character movement. Half-assed melee combat. Half-assed cover mechanic. Half-assed weapon upgrade system. Half-assed sound design and mixing. Quarter-assed story. No-assed AI.

Every aspect of this game is horribly average, derivative, unpolished, or worse. Half-assed, floaty, imprecise character movement. Half-assed melee combat. Half-assed cover mechanic. Half-assed weapon upgrade system. Half-assed sound design and mixing. Quarter-assed story. No-assed AI.

If you're a survival-horror fan, you could do worse than to try following a teenage romance story while battling mutated creatures generated from genetically unstable hallucinogenic pollen that multiply through an infection that spreads like an STD all set to the awesome sounds of the Boston string orchestra and Children's Choir.

Viking is a weekend of relaxing ultraviolence, giving Xbox owners an easy thousand points to chase.

Viking is a weekend of relaxing ultraviolence, giving Xbox owners an easy thousand points to chase and PS3 owners a short, sweet adventure to pad their shelf.

If you want my advice, think of Ultimate Contest as a bandage and tear it off as quickly as possible. Underneath it is a martial-arts fighter of epic proportions sure to satisfy fans and newcomers alike.

Opoona fails as an introductory RPG for the young'uns, because it's not as easy and straightforward as it should be; and for more versed RPG players, it doesn't provide anything innovative or compelling.

Crisis Core will make all mako energy-loving fanboys giddy with nostalgia, swoon over the sweeping soundtrack, and ingest every last detail of the story. Most everyone else probably won’t understand what all the hooplah is about.

Overall, Kane's Wrath feels like a final opus to the 'good old days' of the PC RTS. It's good solid fun for the hardcore RTS fan, but a huge pain for anyone that wants something more casual.

As a survival horror game, Condemned 2 is too short on horror. As an FPS game, it’s too short on strategy and level design. At best, it’s a brawler with some horror and FPS elements.

What is most appealing about Singstar 90s is that the 90s are a familiar decade. Unless you’re playing with your parents, everyone will know about every song on the list.

Few titles succeed without having your brain go into overdrive or your character constantly be on the verge of death, and this is gladly one of them.

If the actual tennis wasn’t tedious and mundane, you wouldn’t have to ask whether Sega Superstars Tennis was just used to justify a reunion of Sega characters, or the other way around.

The dream of a Sega-filled game that actually lives up to the legacy of Sega remains to be fulfilled.