Beat the Heat games are the best part of this speedster, cleverly mixing a variety of cool driving techniques with engrossing competition.

Hitz’s greatest hit is its fluid control, which makes the hockey fly by. It’s no NHL 2002, but Hitz should be a blast for arcade sports fans.

Tight and enjoyable, even if it doesn’t take advantage of the X factor.

Despite Thunder’s minor imperfections, it still has the most engaging gameplay of any NASCAR game.

Clothing rippling in the wind is just one of the smooth graphic touches, and the aggressive punk/hardcore soundtrack matches Palmer’s bad-boy persona—but the sound effects aren’t terribly impressive.

Ghost Recon’s in-depth gameplay closely resembles that of the previous Tom Clancy games—but it also has its faults, such as some weak A.I. pathfinding.

The action has a "vanilla" feel. Although the missions are engaging and fairly exciting, you've played ones just like them dozens of times before, and the hefty helping of silly, ornate gadgets and Bond-girl quips is cumbersome.

It delivers all the clever, addictive gameplay that a THPS game should, and in higher resolution than ever before.

MGS2 delivers everything it was teased, touted, hyped, and, in some circles, feared to be. It's easily one of the most memorable gaming experiences you're likely to have.

Even though they feel a little canned and inorganic, most of the stunts are a breeze to execute, thanks in part to a great tutorial mode that will get even total newbies up to speed in a half-hour.

The crisp graphics hold up fine on the small screen, but the music is standard, forgettable fare.

Your enemies look and sound like people, but the environments seem grainy and uninspired, and “atmospheric” music pipes through like an orchestra with a head cold.

The most distinguishing difference between Half-Life and its PC counterpart is the sharper visual presentation.

A huge, fantastic, creative, and wickedly fun RPG that doesn't seem to care that it's "just" on a GBA. It's easily the best RPG available for the GBA-and may just be the best RPG for any console system this year.

The game’s only real flaw is that Spyro kind of handles like a broken bicycle, and steering him/her/it through the pseudo-3D landscape can get frustrating after the nine-hundredth time you’ve inadvertently come too close to a puddle of lethal water.

Hardly a groundbreaking fighting game, but it delivers a massive lineup of classic characters coupled with a tried-and-true fighting engine. It’s rock-solid fighting, plain and simple.

The gameplay still delivers thrilling combat that’s focused less on stealth and much more on action.

It proves that you don’t need hyper detailed, synapse-sizzling graphics to deliver a great game when ingenuity and solid mechanics will do.

With a massive amount of features to unlock and enjoy, SSX Tricky gives fans a whole lot of tasty treats to chew on.

As long as you don’t mind a slightly more technical feel and a hefty challenge, you’ll find the best thing to happen with jetskis since the N64’s Wave Race.

An absolutely gorgeous game, packing in fantastic animations, lavish player models, and stadiums with cool details like flags waving in the stands.

The arcade gameplay retains the Ace Combat trademarks: tons of firepower and a simple control scheme.

If you were hoping the new management would give Crash a big kick in the pants, however, this is one pair of pants you will find quite unkicked.

Sure, crashing is discouraging, but Burnout’s are quite a show, and you can even save your “greatest hits” to a memory card.

Takes as many steps back as it does forward, and ends up teetering precariously over the brink of being a disappointment.

The utterly perfect soundtrack delivers exactly the mood you want, from the smooth coolness of the Predator’s snarl to the eerie silence of the Marine’s pinging motion tracker.

A great game in an awful—or is it just nostalgic?—package; a title that would be considered a classic if it had been released, oh, seven years ago today.

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.