Cheesy voice-acting by minor characters is the only real flaw here.

Quite simply the best arcade racing game ever made. Everything that you loved about the last game is still here and kicking, but with added modes, more action, a faster sense of speed, and some truly addictive multiplayer modes, this game will undoubtedly go down in history as being the epitome of action racing this generation and possibly even the next.

Button spacing on the GameCube controller is the only real liability as it takes some time to learn not to hit X and A at the same time.

Donkey Kong stands tall over other similar-minded action titles. It's one of those Rare games that makes you remember why you liked video games so much in the first place.

Throw in some wild game-rule-altering "mutators" and pleasantly brief loading times, and Unreal Tournament delivers a high-speed, high-adrenaline package that never even has the chance to be boring. It packs more personality than "Quake III Arena."

Like taking a trip through a modern art museum…except all of the paintings are moving, all the sculptures are breathing, and every display is shooting swarms of genetically enhanced laser missiles at the thoughts inside your head.

If you've never played Portal before all you need to know is that it's a must buy, plain and simple. Quit reading right now and download it.

I can't recommend this innovative experience highly enough, and from first time visitors to the Velvet Room to jaded MegaTen fanatics, Persona 4 is an absolute must buy.

When it comes to video game destruction for brains and brawn, Blast is definitely the master.

It’s hard to knock one of the best, most addictive strategy games ever made—but Civ II owners may wonder why they’re paying fifty bucks for what's essentially a decent facelift and a gameplay balance patch.

A huge arsenal of moves and a ridiculous number options - some great, some not so great - add tons of replay value and make Smackdown 2, making it a virtual no-brainer for wrestling fans.

Never before has a sports game improved so much and added so many new features in a single season. It may not be the league-leader in every category, but excellent performances across the board make it the best baseball game of the year. [May 2004, p.86]

The speed has also been cranked, so that skaters fly through the levels at an insane velocity. [Nov 2002, p.50]

Continues to deliver well-balanced pigskin fun with awesome graphics, intuitive controls, numerous options, and lightning-fast onscreen action.

As a gaming experience, LIMBO succeeds by combining cerebral puzzles with physical 'twitch' actions, but what makes it more than just a cool, artsy indie title is the incredible world that PlayDead Studios has created.

But the best of all may be Advanced Wanted mode, which ditches many of the indicators and forces you to rely almost entirely on your observation skills to detect your targets. It's super tough, but incredibly rewarding.

If you missed the game the first time around, this is the perfect opportunity to experience an innovative and expertly designed title. [May 2008, p.83]

Super Meat Boy is a thank-you card addressed to great game design. It recognizes and embraces everything we've come to love about the indie scene, even going so far as to include it – Braid's Tim and Gish's Gish, for instance, show up as playable characters.

An absolute blast from start to finish with plenty of trademark Liberty City locales ripe for exploration, not to mention a cast of incredibly memory characters (Chan Jaoming, I hardly knew ya.) If you're looking for a good action adventure experience that harkens back to the more cartoony Grand Theft Auto days, then Chinatown Wars is certainly worth the investment.

The fact that Visceral boldly ignored the fan fervor and pulled the franchise forward in a logical and thrilling direction is commendable, and even though they'll get their fair share of close-minded bitching that the game fails to live up to the gory heights of the original, it's still a worthy follow-up to the tense opening chapter.

While Pikmin 2 may be more of a hybrid remake/expansion pack than a sequel, it's still funny, fun, brilliant, and more daringly weird than what comes out of 95 percent of most major game studios. It's two of a kind. [Oct 2004, p.76]

If anything, character visuals look slightly sharper with brighter colors than the PS2 game's, and the post-play highlights are still cool.

There are no branching pathways or mulitiple endings, but if you're looking for a rip-roaring adventure, you can't go wrong.

This sequel does not reinvent itself but even at double the price point of its predecessor, Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2 manages to offer enough new modes and graphic enhancements to make it a must buy for fans of the original.

If you own an iPhone, DS, or PSP, those are probably better platforms to play this on, but this iPad version is still a great game that perfectly captures the console GTA experience.

The tired, princess-saving formula never seems to change, but somehow Nintendo makes every visit to the Mushroom Kingdom feel like the first time.

While the game isn't littered with NPCs, there's a lot of interaction with fellow bounty hunters and objectives given from outside sources. It seems like this and the multi-planet settings were both added to make the game feel more like an action-adventure than an adventure-action title, which is a shame since it flies in the face of what made Metroid one of the best franchises in gaming.

There's an awesome amount of gameplay packed into this cart. The landscapes are so huge it's a challenge to remember everything you need to do.