Digital Devil Saga 2 isn't just about maturity; it has maturity, and that's a major accomplishment.

It may not be very original or innovative when compared to the rest of the games in the series, but Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow succeeds in bringing a similar level of polish and quality to the Nintendo DS.

There's nothing else on shelves quite like it, and it's a perfect example of the sort of out-of-the-box thinking that will transform Nintendo's fliptop from an ungraded GameBoy into a true next-generation handheld machine, conceptually as well as physically.

The co-op gameplay is what makes this game special, and while there are enough bugs and hitches in the co-op mechanic to ensure players will be annoyed a little on their way to the fun, it's still a worthwhile experience.

I may not have agreed— or even enjoyed—many of the choices that were made and implemented in the final product, but I have to admit that I'd usually take a flawed, unusual experience like Lost in Blue over most of the inspiration-free stuff clogging shelves today.

It's just about the perfect casual game, just right for people who are looking to kill ten or fifteen minutes at a time dodging dinosaurs and snacking on flies.

Frankly, I think the entire action-centric, Island of Dr. Moreau direction the game takes in its latter half is unnecessary. The game is more than suspenseful enough just by placing the player against impossible odds, and the game's lush tropical locales are much more compelling than the indoor corridors that appear a bit later on.

If video games were running shoes, Cold War would be the designer lookalike sold on the streets of Chinatown for nest to nothing.

It gets halfway there with an elaborate backstory and interesting premise, but it gets too stuck in standard FPS design conventions to ever really distinguish itself as anything special.

The developers obviously care greatly about the source material, and it shows in everything from the spot-on controls to the excellent voice acting.

Ultimate Spider-Man is nothing more than a bargain-bin effort that would be over and forgotten in an hour or two except for the pointless required side missions artificially extending playtime.

By forgetting some of the market expectations and putting a bit of themselves into their work, the game's creators (some of them at least) have made confident and convincing strides towards evolving the genre, and struck a balance between Eastern and Western gaming tastes that only Nintendo is normally capable of nailing so well. [Andrew "Fletch" Fletcher]

We Love Katamari is a loving, faithful rendition of Katamari Damacy—right down to its camera, which still wedges itself in places and sputters like an old lawnmower.

I would have liked a longer game with a little more challenge to it, but at the end of the day Genji does so many things well that I found myself willing to live with the flaws.

I don't think it's an overstatement to say that Quantic Dream's work is an achievement for dramatic storytelling and a bold step forward towards maturation of the medium. Games like this are what I live for as a player and as a critic.

A good game that will give gamers roughly twenty hours of offline entertainment and countless more online with friends. My biggest beef remains the fact that the game feels more like an expansion of last year's title as opposed to a new experience.

For fans of the show it's a wonderful new piece of new Animaniacs content. For everyone who isn't lucky enough to have seen the show, it's a solid piece of gameplay along with an opportunity to connect with some really wonderful comic characters.

One-on-one battles were a great way in the past to offer quick diversions in the middle of a longer AC campaign, but they are not enough to sustain a game all by themselves. Toss in the fact that the game's graphics are still as bare-bones as they were five years ago, and that there's virtually no new content with much of the material being recycled from previous games, and you've got something that would be a $20 add-on at best.

I honestly do think that Sir Daniel Fortesque is a good character with potential, but I would have much rather seen an all-new game with a nod towards current methodology than a rehash of something that honestly wasn't all that great in the first place.

These characters deserve a bigger canvas on which to tell their tale.

There isn't a plot to speak of, nor any gameplay elements beyond the fighting. But the fighting really is exceptionally fun for novices and experts, which makes this game extremely successful on its own terms.

The critic in me tells me this series needs to innovate, but as a gamer I'm once again completely satisfied by the experience. Defying conventional wisdom, Dynasty Warriors is unique in that the gameplay achieves a near perfect harmonious balanced and change would only upset that.

While its story is interesting and its gameplay is serviceable, this RPG didn't thrill me, or frustrate me, or enrage me. Radiata Stories just shared my general area for a while, and now that it's gone, I don't miss it.

Dense, methodical, and maybe even a little bit unfriendly, but there's nothing else quite like it on Game Boy today.

The game offers entertaining car combat with enough car, weapon, and track variations to keep players from getting bored.

If we assume that videogames are partly about realizing control-fantasies, Nintendogs is about the absolute opposite. Coping with the stubborn and playfully anarchic mindset of a puppy can teach gamers an important lesson: learn to let go.

If we assume that videogames are partly about realizing control-fantasies, Nintendogs is about the absolute opposite. Coping with the stubborn and playfully anarchic mindset of a puppy can teach gamers an important lesson: learn to let go.

If we assume that videogames are partly about realizing control-fantasies, Nintendogs is about the absolute opposite. Coping with the stubborn and playfully anarchic mindset of a puppy can teach gamers an important lesson: learn to let go.

For anyone but die-hard fans of the franchise or genre, these two games just aren't worth the price of one.

This could have been a great original title, but instead it's a waste of shelf space with just one redeeming feature: it only takes around five hours to beat.

A whole lot of hot air and buzz with nothing to back it up.

Obviously an effort that the developers poured their heart and soul into, and it shows. Everything about it is high quality and imbued with skill and care.

This could have been a great original title, but instead it's a waste of shelf space with just one redeeming feature: it only takes around five hours to beat.

If there's one thing that the Sonic Gems Collection taught me, it's that Sega is out of Sonic games to repackage. None of the titles here are particularly famous, nor was there any particular fan outcry for their release.

The potential of a ghostly character capable of leaping from soldier to soldier, causing chaos in the middle of a firefight has barely been scratched, not to mention the poltergeist scenarios that could be crafted around possessing exploding lightbulbs, flying bedsheets, rattling pots and pans, or any number of other things that could be employed for the purpose of haunting.

While the Rainbow Six series has disappointly compromised the realistic approach that was once its calling card, the Ghost Recon series remains planted firmly in its one-hit-kill, tactical-action roots and, with Summit Strike, reaffirms its place at the top of the tactical shooter hill.

It's sublimely complex and bursting with potential on one hand, unbelievably limited and shortsighted on the other.

It's a shame that Makai Kingdom has gone largely unnoticed, but as long as Nippon Ichi keeps turning on games of this quality, I'm going to keep on supporting them.

An almost completely successful swordfighting simulation. It does a better job with its setting than any game I've seen, and even though it's a little limited in scope, it's satisfying and effective at what it tries to accomplish.

Nanostray's controls may have fixed something that wasn't broken, but even so, it still managed to provide a pleasing, fast-paced jaunt through the cosmos.

It's unfortunate, then, that such a beguiling front-end is offset by the ruthlessness of the game's ill-fitting emphasis on progression and unlocking new areas.

Indeed, Fullmetal Alchemist 2 has proven to me that its parent anime is a good show. But I've yet to be convinced that Fullmetal Alchemist 2 is a good game.

When a game is as derivative and uninspired as this one, a rotten camera is just another nail in its coffin. Unfortunately, the film franchise graveyard won't let these monsters die.

The story had enough twists to keep me enthralled to the end, which didn't require an epic forty-hour time commitment. There were elements of strategy in the shooting, but it wasn't a first-person frag-fest. I would say that the emperor wears its bloodstained new clothes quite well.

The kinetic running and gunning is there and it has the right style, but Coded Arms in its present form seems more like the first few pieces of something larger, rather than a complete product.

And despite the very real possibility of some people being put off by the huge amount of text to get through, I strongly feel that Riviera has quite a bit to offer-not only to people still hanging on to their GBAs, but to fans of RPG's in general.

Fantastic Four didn't rock my world, but it easily avoided auto-sucking and turned out to be a pretty decent day's work.

Despite these issues, Psychonauts is a wonderfully strange platformer. The idea of perception being a reality in itself is the kind of thing I'd like to see future games explore further.

A technically accomplished, but thoroughly unpleasant gaming experience. I'm sure there's a market for this; I'm just not part of it.

Technically sound but leaving me feeling hollow and unsatisfied, Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones reminds me quite a bit of the series I mentioned earlier, "Advance Wars." Both games hooked me immediately and sucked me in the first time around, and both sequels left me hungry by staying too close to the original formula and coming off like add-ons or extended missions instead of being true sequels.

Those who shirk from buying Twisted! because of its quirky production values, one-track design and, crucially, its short core lifespan are those whose preoccupation with value for money and dependable purchases is slowly sapping game design of its freedom and gaming of its ability to showcase the broadest and most experientially distinct body of work of any popular medium.

Playing Finny the Fish & the Seven Waters was about as close as I come to relaxed reverie with a controller in my hand these days, and I'm glad that Natsume took a risk (and will likely take a loss) by bringing such a refreshingly quirky niche game to break up the monotony of infinite WWII recreations, look-alike FPSs, and customizable racing games currently boring the hell out of me.

With the exception of a small item collection scheme which allows players to build their own grenades, Cold Winter offers nothing distinctly new to the FPS market. Instead, what it brings is excellent design, good storytelling, and eight to ten hours of entertaining violence to a console that's never had it so good.

Dungeon Lords provides solid, if glitchy, Action-RPG experience.

I just can't imagine a filmmaker putting me in a situation where, once the movie stopped, I was forced to go onto a website to find out how it ended. I also can't imagine how anyone at Microids couldn't see just what a fatal misstep this lack of an ending was.

While competent enough to satisfy hardcore fans between better games, Pariah never really takes off and brings its ideas to fruition. It is at best at second-tier shooter that rides the waves of its peers instead of making them.

Personally, as much as I have been impressed by Forza, I found it to be just a little too much. It's a fantastic game, but one best suited to those willing to invest some serious time into their racing games.

A wonderful survival horror game. The new control scheme is so good that if Capcom were to redo all the previous RE games in the style of Outbreak they could probably convince me to go ahead and buy all four titles for a third time.

The pieces to assemble a great game are all there, but it just never quite gels into the game it could have been.

With its minimalist aesthetic and focus on customization and combat at the expense of all else, Rengoku might leave a lot of curious PSP owners cold. But, for those gamers looking for something a little further afield than the latest racing or sports update, this niche experience is most definitely worth looking at.

Incredibly high production values can't mask a central lack of compelling gameplay.

A fine package, full of screaming weaponry and loads of options for players who live for this sort of thing, but I doubt that anyone who's not already into the big-caliber/big tits run-and-gun culture will find much to bring them into the fold.

It's not especially big, but the tedium of the action makes it feel overlong. The lack of variety in enemies and gameplay make it feel almost like a budget title.

The main problem is that there is nothing new to see. After a certain point, Obscure shows that there are two sides to maintaining interest in a successful horror game: the lack of early action must be balanced in other areas, and when the action starts it must not dull too soon.

Excepting its peach-perfect fit on the young platform, Mercury is hardly mind-blowing—how many puzzle games are?—and can't match Lumines for sensation and impact. This is simply a very good puzzle game conceit that's been unassailably well implemented into a sensibly balanced and handsome title.

This title has it all—engrossing and challenging gameplay, a plot that rises above the usual clichés of the genre, loads of depth and customization, great graphics, and some excellent audio. This is, hands down, the best RPG I've played in 2005.

It's not the longest game, and it's not the most complex game, but it succeeds at almost everything it sets out to do-which puts it head and shoulders above most other games out there, Star Wars-related or not.

The critic in me tells me this series needs to innovate, but as a gamer I'm once again completely satisfied by the experience. Defying conventional wisdom, Dynasty Warriors is unique in that the gameplay achieves a near perfect harmonious balanced and change would only upset that.

Despite some improvements, the navigation is simply too clunky and unnatural for Revelation to appeal to anyone but fans of the series.

It's not too often when a series can challenge me to think of the endless possibilities for future installments all because of a sound formula established by its flawed first installment.

I can't help but think that a little more depth and soul underneath Kratos' untouchable repertoire of fatalities would have lifted the game into true super-stardom.

Even if its opinion is a little simplistic ("Drugs have short-term benefits and long-term consequences") and awkwardly included in the game, at least there's an attempt at a message, which is more than most games manage.

My advice to Team Soho would be brief: raze the series to the ground and start anew. This engine is long past its better days.

It's extremely unfortunate that the Ac!d team couldn't reshape the opening hours into something more welcoming and tolerable.

Sony Online is really out of touch with what makes this kind of game good. It adds nothing to the genre that hasn't already been done before—and actually gets a lot of it wrong. I'm never leaving my copy of "Lumines" at home again.

It's not going to be winning any awards, but it's an entertaining gameplay experience packaged alongside a virtual vault of nostalgia, and worth at least a glance for fans of the genre or the characters.

What is disappointing about Musashi is that I expect more from Square-Enix. The company seems to be mired in a bit of a rut as of late, and churning out average, if uninspired, games like this one doesn't seem to be a good way to get back on course.

All of the elements that make up a decent survival horror game are on display here. The monsters, the violence, the simplistic, action-oriented storytelling... They're just so shoddily rendered and assembled that all they add up to is a mediocre experience.

Fun, but has only whetted my appetite for more bongo-compatible games. With time and resources, the bongo controllers can be used in better and cleverer ways as time goes on.

While my attention span is getting short and Rave Master: Special Attack Force! never really amazed me, I had fun playing it. I liked the button-mashing.. I liked experimenting with new moves.

The game is perfectly, almost proverbially, meh.

There's one hell of a third-person action game to be found here—quite possibly the best in its class—for anyone willing to look beyond the game's off-putting exterior.

With a little more thought put into the interface, Moment of Silence could have been a graphic adventure classic, but as it stands now, it's a really good story, cleverly locked away inside a series of rooms that need to be clicked through.

A pretty tough game. It's not a long experience, but players will no doubt add a few hours to the final tally from being killed and having to replay missions.

Oh, and in a final note to developers: please don't put pictures of your children in the end credits of your video games. It's not like it kept me from giving Psychotoxic a bad review—I just feel kind of guilty about it.

A totally lush and vibrant experience.There's a palpable sense of energy in the game, and it shines so brightly it's impossible not to see.

Unfortunately, the developers were so focused on reaching their goal they forgot that while accuracy is a noble goal to strive for, it doesn't hurt for games to be a little fun as well.

While it may not do anything new or anything spectacularly well, there's no denying that it's a hell of a lot of fun.

Between NanoBreaker and "Lament of Innocence," I remain absolutely unconvinced that there is any hope for the KCET studio to develop a playable, enjoyable 3-D action game.

I don't think I can stress it enough; I really don't like the overhaul of the battle system in Xenosaga II.

Like a deflated football, 7 Trials doesn't encourage you to play, nor does it promise exciting play, it just makes play possible.

It doesn't try to accomplish very much, and it succeeds at almost all of its very modest targets.

Yes, it feels thin compared to fifty-hour role-playing games and branching platformers that let players choose their own paths. But it's fast and furious; we even get to fly our own spaceships and yell "Ka-pow!" at no one in particular. What more could a ten-year-old boy want?

Playing Shadow of Rome has made me more sympathetic to people who argue that killing fake people can lead to killing real ones. I came to accept Shadow of Rome's violence fully.

It adds a much-needed dose of the kind of quality that is not often seen in these days of safe sequels and formulaic products.

The characters are there—now someone just needs to figure out how to create some gameplay that makes the experience fun and not a chore.

There's no shame at all in putting out a solid effort like this. The only "bad" thing that could be said about it is that it's not revolutionary.

To see a series falter so badly after years of doing everything right is distressing.