Avalanche Studios took all the complaints about Just Cause and turned them into Just Cause 2, proposing a more vibrant and richer gameplay experience, though maintaining the same formula. The vast and marvelous Palau is definitely a place you gotta see… and destroy!

SEGA made good use of the experience made with Empire to improve its RTS formula, resulting in a more effective gameplay. Although Napoleon: Total War has its shortcomings – even with the AI – it still manages to keep the player involved throughout, thanks to its thoroughness and rather accurate historical setting.

IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey wisely mixes both action and simulation elements with realistic graphics and awesome effects. Thanks to that, it gives players an intense and realistic gameplay experience, including real flying techniques (with different difficulty levels) and an immersive WWII atmosphere.

Muramasa: The Demon Blade is the state of the art for modern 2D graphics. Although it is a bit repetitive at times, it offers quite a few interesting gameplay solutions, alongside the possibility to play two different stories depending on which character you choose.

Although it is always quite difficult to judge a videogame that has no term of comparison other than itself, we can state the fact that WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2010 marks a big step forward for the whole franchise, introducing improved graphics, improved collision system and improved gameplay as a whole.

Better graphic, better environments, better textures, better animations, better effects... all in all, a better Tiger Woods PGA Tour. The tenth edition introduces several improvements and loads of new features, including the new rules introduced by the United State Golf Association, the Tournament Challenge, the Weather Channel, and a solid multiplayer mode. There are no real rivals for a direct comparison, yet this doesn’t make Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 anything less than a must-have!

NBA Live 10 has shortened the gap separating it from the winner’s glory… from NBA 2K10, that is. Its major assets are once again the incredible graphics and the excellent audio. Gameplay wise too, this is an excellent game and the feeling is that its rival is not so far after all. But all we can say for now is: maybe next year.

In a unique single-player experience, Red Steel 2 brings the player into a stylish Samurai-Far Western world dominated by violence. A clever use of the Wii MotionPlus, some fine cosmetics and the wise balance between shooting and fighting sessions are the keys of its success.

An old classic comes back to life for nest-gen consoles and players. A Boy and His Blob offers great 2D graphics and an original gameplay – even for the present standards – but most of all it is a work of art of rare sensibility.

Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny effectively manages to translate the home console experience into a portable one, preserving both the original gameplay and characters. Nice to play and to look at, thanks to the great graphics, it has a limited longevity, though.

The first thing you ought to know about Beaterator is that it’s not a game. The second thing is that it is not so easy to use. The third thing is that it’s an excellent alternative to most sequencing programs, and an excellent portable tool for making your own music on the go and share it with the world.

NBA Live 10 has shortened the gap separating it from the winner’s glory… from NBA 2K10, that is. Its major assets are once again the incredible graphics and the excellent audio. Gameplay wise too, this is an excellent game and the feeling is that its rival is not so far after all. But all we can say for now is: maybe next year.

Yakuza 3 is still a great game, in spite of the fact that it’s a whole year old, as some aspects of its gameplay and graphics sporadically show. The wait was worth it.

Rock Band Unplugged has managed to translate the home console experience into a “live” portable performance, adapting its control system to the PSP quite effectively. The tracklist is no lame either, with several nice songs included in the UMD and many more available for download from the PlayStation Network.

Gears of War 2: Dark Corners is nothing more and nothing less than a well-tailored Map Pack, yet it’s absolutely a must-have for all GoW fans. For your 1200 MS points you also get to play part of a previously cut scene from the single player campaign.

There are only a few shortcomings in Scribblenauts, but they are not enough to spoil an incredibly original gameplay, which will put the player face to face with his/her own imagination. In fact, the more imagination you put into solving its riddles, the more this game will surprise you, one level after the other.

Tropico 3’s gameplay hasn’t changed much since the first iteration thus making it difficult for the players to decide whether the new graphics is enough to make want to be El Presidente once again… But if you’ve never played at it before, this is a great chance!

Visually stunning, Tekken 6 introduces new characters, options and modes, alongside the possibility to customize your own fighter, yet without abandoning its successful gameplay formula.

Dissidia: Final Fantasy is a must-have for all FF fans, a dream come true after all those years spent wishing to see all the characters of this huge saga fighting one another! All other players too should play it, having in mind that this is also one of the best fighting games on PSP ever.

Ghostbusters: The Video Game is a great game, a fact that actually came as quite a surprise taken into account its numerous problems and delays. Enjoyable and immersive, it does have some defects such as the not-so perfect AI, but once you have put down the pad and turned off the console, you are left with a nice flavour in your mouth. A flavour mixed with the memories from the original movie.

What really hits you while playing at MotorStorm: Arctic Edge is the intense sense of speed, and the fact that it’s all happening on a PSP! This is a fun-to-play porting game, but as such it has also some limits: both the graphics and the AI are the victims the overall sense of velocity.

The dev team of Overlord 2 has focused a lot of its attention and efforts to getting rid of the tearing, clipping and aliasing issues which afflicted the previous game. The result is quite good: very nice environments, characters, effects and sounds. And a real laugh while playing!

Honestly, we didn’t expect to see the best Silent Hill since long right on the Wii, but here it is. Silent Hill Shattered Memories offers great graphics and atmosphere, but most of all it’s got an excellent gameplay.

Pro Evolution Soccer 2010 is not the turning point everyone’s been waiting for over the past year. Yet again. The scarce number of novelties, and the low level of innovation and realism, opposite to a gameplay engine in desperate need for a rethinking, eventually have turned THE soccer simulation into something closer to an arcade game. Strangely enough, a game we may still like, though.

Prototype had had to come to terms with some technical limitations in order to favour its open world environment and sandbox structure, but it did keep up the pace with and actually proved even better than some of the most spectacular productions, thanks to its Titanium Engine, which guarantees a solid frame rate throughout the game in spite of its unpredictable, hectic and fun-to-play gaming experience.

Rabbids Go Home is extremely enjoyable mostly thanks to its incredible sense of humour. It is also quite varied, offering many different gameplay situations. Graphically convincing, it’s definitely worth giving it a go!

In spite of its resemblance with Mario Kart, Sonic and SEGA All Stars Racing still is an enjoyable racing game, with the charm of SEGA’s characters still intact. It’s a pity we didn’t find our favourite ones, though.

War simulation games fans should be grateful to the Bohemia Interactive dev team. ArmA 2 is an incredible title, technically impressive, often a marvel for the eyes. Realistic, absorbing and immersive, it puts you straight into close-to-real war action throughout its 225 square Kilometers, villages, people and armies.