Smackdown 07 is easily the best wrestling game to date. There's enough juicy content here to keep you busy for years to come, which is enough time for Hulk Hogan to retire and unretire twelve times.

Graphically, it's difficult to find any real differences between the two versions- in other words, they both look pretty good- but overall, I'd have to give the win to the Xbox 360, which comes out slightly on top with visuals that were a wee bit crisper.

Those who loved the original should at least try the game to experience how having the Wii-mote has changed the feel of the operations.

The worst part of the game has to be the audio. The incessant buzzing that is meant to represent the vehicles engines brought to mind the tinny whine of our time with Outrun on the Sega Master System. There's literally no variance or change in pitch in the engine's hum for, oh say, air flow, proximity or speed. There's just straight up honey-powered bee-mobiles.

Taken in small does, NFL Street 3 is fun enough, but despite comic book flourishes and interesting interactive field ideas, it just can't hold a candle to Blitz's polish in it's current form.

One could possibly spend hours on end playing this game, as they obsessively upgrade their shops to unlock more things to buy, until eventually you monopolizing businesses the entire Tamagotchi Mall.

NBA replay online content does have some interesting prospects, with the top five real-life NBA games from the past week set to be recreated in NBA 07 as part of an online multiplayer competition. Good hustle.

What's most disappointing, however, is how pitifully the game's "attitude" falls on its face. Every last unfunny quip issued by the traffic chopper, every painful Arnold Schwarzenegger impression, every ham-fisted racial stereotype is so poor that you can't help but wonder "what were they thinking?"

Best viewed as a refinement on an already phenomenal product.

A shallow and simpleminded title that holds a faint glimmer of fun. There's nothing here that you'd want to play for more than a few minutes, but ironically enough, that qualifies Dark Kingdom as one of the more tolerable PS3 launch games.

Fun and light-hearted play. A tongue of praise to Yoshi's Island 2 for not only remaining true to the classical style but also adding new elements to keep things fresh.

The Ridge Racer series has always seemed to provide games more suited to the casual arcade crowd than serious racing devotees, and despite its jump in graphics quality and new twists, this latest installment isn't likely to convert many to its streamlined feel.

We give the nod to NBA 2K7 [over "NBA 07"] for its superior in-game management and franchise development mode.

There's no online component whatsoever, and splitting the screen for local one-on-one match-ups just exacerbates the already intolerable frame-rate woes. The sad truth is that even the most hardcore robot battle junkie will feel ripped off by this mess.

Blitz is no work of art. It's quirky, bizarro entertainment that grabs you like a swift kick to the testosterone sack and is best played live with guys in an M-rated atmosphere.

Add in the eye-catching, and retina burning graphics, the clever use of audio cues to alert you to events and problems, the elegant control and menu interface and a design philosophy that doesn't unfairly penalize you for mistakes, and you've got a recipe for fun that's simple and enchanting.

Despite all the caveats, fans of the better-known Contras should find the original arcade game an enjoyable curiosity, and it's also pretty cheap at only 400 Microsoft points.

The game glows in a revelatory way we haven't seen since "God of War" and "Resident Evil 4." If nothing else, it's infinitely more engaging and suspenseful than this year's crop of by-the-books FPS games.

Treyarch and Activision have done an great job with COD3 and created an experience that is at once much the same, but also better, than its predecessor.

Project 8 is ridiculously pretty. The overall graphics received a significant upgrade, but we were especially impressed with the character animations. The virtual skaters look and move just like their real-life counterparts... The best Tony Hawk game since "THPS2."

Though the Genesis played second fiddle to the Super Nintendo, it had some awesome titles and thankfully, there are enough of them on this disc to merit a look.

Old Digimon fans will absolutely love this game; it's a repackaging of the older Digimons, but with much more to do. However, new fans may be a bit wary approaching a game like Digimon World DS.

While I personally don't LOVE the overabundance of hard rock and metal songs, every track on the game is more than fun to play along with, and the classic rock tunes are savage, as usual...One of the best gaming experiences ever.

Ultimately, the game amounts to a very extensive map pack with one new game mode, but because the great gameplay of the original is left intact, Lumines II is still a very enjoyable experience.

While it's true some of the quirkiness of the humor is better conveyed in the Japanese counterpart, Elite Beat Agents is no slouch, and is an overall very fun game.

Wonderfully rendered, but when compared to Secret of Mana's engaging narrative, Children of Mana's sparse and slow story falls short.

With amazing improvements and incredible gameplay, FFXII is without a doubt the best Final Fantasy game in over a decade. Put simply, this is what all RPGs, regardless of platform or subject matter, should aspire to be.

However, Liberation is a worthy new chapter in the Killzone series and does more right than it does wrong. [Dec. 2006, p.122]