Lively multiplayer modes and a considerable campaign are hampered by bothersome network issues in Ghost Recon: Future Soldier.

With little notable improvement to the formula and steps backward in several key areas, SmackDown! vs. RAW 2008 is a big disappointment.

Infiltrating enemy territory and tactically eliminating evildoers is tense and enjoyable in Unit 13.

This isn't a game that's going to reel in the longtime Dynasty Warriors naysayer; this is a game that is designed to appeal to an already loyal fan base, and it serves its purpose perfectly.

The game is visually keen, and its pacing is marvelous, but its fighting system is remarkably slim, emphasizing one-button combos and nearly instant-kill supers.

Despite shifting gears in surprising ways and extending the life of its gunplay by remixing levels, Farpoint is more like a proof of concept than a game designed to push the envelope on its own terms. It'll give you a taste of something new for PSVR, and give you hints of what to look forward to if the Aim controller attracts wider support. It's going to be hard to go back to two Move controllers now that Sony's new toy has made a case for itself.

PG3SE will offer absolutely no surprises to those who have played previous games in the series.

The game seems to lack an overall level of polish, as you'll see some questionable AI and some occasional bouts of slowdown in the PS2 version of the game. Still, the gameplay itself is rock-solid.

Despite its bugs, The Temple of Elemental Evil stands as one of the most authentic PC Dungeons & Dragons experiences of the past few years.

Introduces a few clever concepts, but its length, with only nine playable courses, and the gameplay flaws such as the ineffective power-ups, loose controls, and the unnecessarily large multiplayer arenas significantly limit the game.

MotoGP 4 is a late entry into a very crowded field of racing games for the PlayStation 2. The core gameplay is still as fun and flexible as ever, and the addition of online play is a welcome, if very tardy, one. Despite being slightly out-of-date, MotoGP 4 is still a good way to get your racing fix.

A lot of what made Command & Conquer great comes through in this package, but a few rough edges make it all seem a little sloppy.

Call of Juarez takes few risks with its setting or genre, but it does what it does well enough to be enjoyable.

A basketball game that remains virtually unchanged from last year's version.

Quite easy. The only really difficult spots in the game are the few instances where it's unclear what you're supposed to do next.

Even the most ardent snowboarder will find it difficult to like the snail's pace at which the snowboarder mode unfolds, and the confounding controls make it almost impossible to enjoy the rest of the game.

Similar to "Hitz Pro," Blitz Pro is a combination of arcade and simulation styles. Unfortunately, this combination doesn't work nearly as well as its NHL predecessor, and, while the end result can be fun, overall it's a pretty big leap backward for the Blitz series.

Between its overall solid presentation, and its gameplay that keeps you guessing, this is one game that's worth taking a look at.

With each iteration, the series has offered more and more features, but with Inside Drive 2004, it's apparent that the developers at High Voltage still have a ways to go before catching up to their competitors.

For all that The Hulk misses on, like the repetitive level designs and the clumsy stealth action sequences, the game gets enough of it right to tip the scales in its favor.

Though experienced PC RTS players may find Goblin Commander to be somewhat shallow, it's still a pretty decent RTS game for console players, with an interface that is nicely streamlined for controllers.

Terrifying moments make Corpse Party a get-together worth attending.

Don't let the candy colors fool you; Mamorukun Curse is an intense and enjoyable shooter experience.

Batman: The Enemy Within Episode Two builds on a strong opening to the season. It raises the stakes for Bruce Wayne by throwing him into a shark tank and asking him to turn bloodthirsty enemies into friends. Along with an empowered Harley Quinn and the unnerving powder-keg that is John Doe, the second episode provides drama and excitement in equal measure.

Obviously, a game-breaking bug is a serious problem, but I was tired of Bridge Constructor Portal long before my progress was abruptly halted. This game falls short in just about every area; an amusing story or eye-catching visual design could have at least distracted from the dull puzzles, but you get no reprieve here.

The faults of its gameplay are especially disappointing given that Trek to Yomi is such a gorgeous and spellbinding game to look at. Its visuals are evocative of classic samurai cinema in a way few other games have managed, successfully capturing the look and feel of Kurosawa's masterpieces with aplomb. It's easy to recommend if you have an Xbox Game Pass subscription, if only to marvel at each meticulously constructed frame. If only the game beneath it all wasn't such an unfortunate letdown.

Exciting for Ferrari fans, but take away the licence and you're left with a competent racer with only average looks, poor AI opponents, and not enough variety.

Get Even tells a devastating story that ends with a striking M. Night Shyamalan-like twist. Interestingly, it's the most crucial part of the entire story, and you see none of it. The visuals are left entirely to the imagination, which is unexpected and impactful. It is these kinds of powerful moments that emphasize Get Even's key strength--delivering a twisting narrative that is fascinating enough to make up for its lackluster gameplay elements.

The best part about State of Emergency is the way every facet of the game comes together to form a perfect feeling of panic.

There’s something to be said for the continuing efforts to keep turn-based RPGs viable, and Stranger of Sword City in particular shows a commendable willingness to at least try fusing new ideas with still-viable concepts of old. However, without characters even worth caring about to drive it along, Stranger of Sword City is left leaning on its gameplay, which is comprised primarily of the most laborious, antiquated aspects of the genre.

God Eater 3 is a solid entry in the franchise that doesn't necessarily reinvent itself, but it doesn't have to. All the core things that make God Eater so enjoyable, from the lightning-fast combat to the anime stylings, have been given a new lick of paint and propped up enticingly next to additions like the well-tuned Assault Missions and creative enemies to make one delicious package. Some aspects of the game--like its difficulty curve and multitude of superfluous customization systems--miss the mark, but it's an enjoyable romp with plenty of raucous battles if you're hungry for an action RPG.

The combat is fun and the references are clever, but this incredibly short downloadable add-on lacks character.

Episode 3 of Telltale's Batman: The Enemy Within is well thought out and strongly written. Telltale has weaved together a complicated web of relationships that's becoming strained by the people tangled in it. After two relatively straightforward episodes, this is exactly what the series needed to carry it forward and ensure players are compelled to see it through.

Tokyo 42 stands as a monument to intricate, beautiful design, and its tense, unpredictable combat is a highlight. But somewhere along the way it forgets to walk in the dirt.

The latest Guitar Hero is an Aerosmith fan's dream come true, but the game's narrow focus and lack of content will prove unappealing to many others.

Kung Fu Panda’s wonky combat is balanced out by its attractive style, quality audio, and solid platforming.

This console and PC trip through the Wardrobe is a mostly run-of-the-mill action adventure that might hold some measure of appeal to fans of the film, but not so much anyone else.

Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising is short, clocking in at about 15 hours for 100% completion--though it probably could have cut a few hours of side-questing out and still wound up being a fine little adventure. Despite enduring a fair bit of filler, I don't regret the time I spent playing the game, and am interested to see how the characters and setting play into the bigger Eiyuden Chronicle world being created. It might be flawed, but Rising accomplishes what it sets out to do: whetting players' appetites for a grand adventure down the line.

Driveclub is ordinary menus and ordinary races, standard time trials, and a few drift events. Driveclub is bland social competition. Driveclub is the fear of risks and the embrace of the ordinary.

Starshatter provides a welcome dose of innovation to a space sim genre that's been practically rendered extinct, but its originality ultimately fails to translate into a satisfying gameplay experience.

While it's almost identical to the PlayStation 2 version, the GameCube version is made slightly less desirable by the choppy, somewhat pixilated graphics.

Older audiences probably won't be engaged by it, but Ty 2 should be easily appreciated by juvenile platformer fans.

A captivating albeit disturbing setting is Transference's greatest asset, rooted by strong performances from the cast and a smart approach to storytelling.

What Ashes of Ariandel lacks in originality, it makes up for in cohesion with the full version of Dark Souls III.

You get what you pay for with this budget first-person shooter.

We experimented with a full six-player field, and we found the frame rate smooth and the fender-to-fender action and wide-open spaces both thrilling and intriguing.

Though the game's developers clearly put a lot of work into the way the game looks and sounds, Enclave's gameplay just doesn't measure up to its presentation.

It's an all-around great real-time strategy game that also happens to stand out from other games in the genre.

A lengthy enough endeavor for shooter fans of a mildly forgiving disposition.

Ideas aside, however, Breakdown's underlying game design is unable to bear the weight of its own innovation, so it's really just a pretty good action game that you can't help but feel could have been so much more.

Unfortunately, this combination doesn't work nearly as well as its NHL predecessor, and, while the end result can be fun, overall it's a pretty big leap backward for the Blitz series.

The Lost Hobo King is a welcome return to the world of Stacking, but it's over before you know it.

If you don't have any hang-ups with wandering around in dark places, and you're looking for a deep and involving role-playing game, then you'd be doing yourself a favor by checking out Arx Fatalis. This is a game you can really lose yourself in.

It's simply not enjoyable to contort your hand around the DS and listen to 25 low-fi songs while you strum the touch screen and fight the pain in your hand.

Go into your own bedroom and bring three objects, one at a time, into the living room. Over the Hedge on the Nintendo DS is the video game equivalent of this precise action, repeated ad nauseam.

Even if you don't particularly care for Tolkien, there's a lot to love here in spite of the annoying server issues.

Obtuse puzzles make Sherlock Holmes: Nemesis a case that's about as hard to crack as "The Red-Headed League."

Lego Pirates of the Caribbean is cute, colorful, and boring.

Nuclear Dawn is an intense first-person shooter/real-time strategy hybrid that has a lot to offer when it comes to teamwork.

It's disappointing that Blue Fire is unquestionably fun to move around in but is hampered by design decisions that hold back its free-form platforming. It's difficult to experiment with the reaches of your agility when it's so easy to lose large swathes of progress due to a misstep, a punishment that permeates not only exploration but the otherwise expertly designed platforming side challenges. Its economy relies too heavily on one in-game currency and unnecessarily blocks progression, making it feel like Blue Fire isn't respectful of your time. You'd have to really fall in love with Blue Fire's one well-tuned mechanic to make its entire adventure feel worthwhile.

Escape Plan brings action and puzzles to the Vita with style, but awkward controls crash the party.

This isn't the best action game you'll play this year, but that doesn't mean you won't have a damn fun time playing it.

2006 FIFA World Cup captures all the excitement of the world's biggest football tournament, but the flashy presentation hides a real lack of depth.

Loot Rascals card and deck systems are enticing, and its singular aesthetic and strange sense of humor make the game fundamentally likable early on. After a few hours, however, it feels like there isn't a lot to gain for all the effort you're asked to put in. There are fleeting moments of joy when a strategic card collection lets you steamroll through the enemy forces, but the monotony of getting to those moments wears you down in the end.

It's likely that only those players who have already acquired a taste for Metal Slug's rich blend of crazy, manic violence and goofy humor will fully appreciate this package.

MLB 2K7 is a decent game, but it's painfully obvious how little effort the developer put into improving this year's game over last year's.

The Hong Kong Massacre is a game with a specific goal--to capture the feeling of an over-the-top John Woo-style slow-motion diving kill shot, and it succeeds. The game's faults are washed away whenever you leap out of the way of a bullet and quickly take out the person who fired it. It's a game that sticks with you when you're not playing it, as you think through different approaches to the room you died in last time. You'll fail frequently, and the repetition can wear you down, but it's hard to resist the temptation of bursting through a window and perfectly lining up three kill shots.

Draglade's rhythm-based combat isn't as robust as it could be, but the story mode and competitive online play are still fun.

Ten Hammers maintains a good presentation and adds some minor control tweaks, but overall you're left with a strategy experience that feels very familiar if you played the first game.

Regrettably, Pinstripe's rich atmosphere is overpowered by these types of issues. Enemies need only a few shots to defeat, puzzles need only a couple of tries to solve, and the final boss can be exploited to oblivion. And because the story lacks emotional weight or resonance, once the credits roll, you'll quickly forget Ted and Bo's struggle, the puzzles you solved, the conclusion to what could have been a memorably haunting trip through Hell.

Warlock: Master of the Arcane's emphasis on combat makes it feel fresh in the 4X strategy genre. It just needed some fine-tuning to be truly great.

Online play is a huge disappointment, but the frenetic action of the Meteos series has survived the journey to the Xbox Live Arcade intact.

Though it has some shortcomings, You Don't Know Jack does deliver on quantity and quality for a reasonable $19.99, making it very appealing for those who like to test their knowledge and have a few laughs while they're at it.

The structure and new ideas in A New God are promising: Despite my frequent frustrations with its physics and many of the puzzles, I had a decent time barreling through all these puzzles without having to discover them on a huge map. But it's hard to ignore how haphazard it felt, the trepidation I experienced trying a solution I knew would work only to have it go wrong for reasons out of my control.

An interesting time-shifting mechanic and fun-to-shoot weapons can't make up for the rest of TimeShift's run-of-the-mill first-person shooter gameplay.

NHL 2K8 is a generally fun hockey game, though its new control scheme is a step backward for the series.

Definitely a more well-conceived game than The Power of Juju, and there are some genuinely fresh, inventive ideas at work here. The problem is, the whole experience is muddled by an inconsistent difficulty and slapdash level designs, and these good ideas don't quite coalesce into a good game.

Big strikeouts and even bigger homers make The BIGS a very good arcade baseball game.

Atmospherically, Cold Fear is derivative and predictable, which is a shame considering that it is, at times, an enjoyable action game.

Combining a serious focus on battlefield tactics with some enjoyable role playing makes Lionheart: Kings' Crusade a winner.

X3 features more of the open-ended space exploration and trading of the earlier games, and it has a gorgeous graphics engine; just don't expect a riveting story.

Eventually The Medium's narrative threads begin to weave together, even connecting to the original goal of discovering Marianne's origins. The promise that everything somehow connects in some unforeseen and fascinating way is a thrilling reason to see the game all the way through. The connections to real-world events of Polish history make many of the revelations even more poignant--even if the supernatural aspects are fictional, it's deeply unsettling to think about how some of the evil present in this game did actually occur. And to that end, The Medium's conclusion sticks with you; it's one last horrifying reminder that trauma may not define a person, but it can have consequences we can't even begin to foresee if it's not adequately dealt with and simply left to fester over time. I can't say I enjoyed the ending to The Medium, but I am deeply satisfied with how it sets up the inescapable nature of its horrifying conclusion.

Ultimately, Psycho Circus is one game you and the boys won't be playing all night.

MN 2002 will wear out its welcome in short order if you have any demands on the game as a serious simulation of the sport. Most will want to move on to the current PS2 version of the game, which represents a year of design improvements that this dated port does not.

This is one case where the whole is definitely less than the sum of the parts. Crime Cities is initially impressive, but its frustrating controls and simple mission design make it quickly lose appeal.

The bad news is that Blue Shift, the actual game, doesn't amount to much on its own terms. The good news is that the revamped graphics and the inclusion of Opposing Force make the retail package a lot more worthwhile.

The weak tactical game, the lack of an adjustable difficulty setting, and the sometimes cumbersome interface are likely to turn off anyone who isn't a fan of the genre.

The game certainly contains a lot of the same Wario charm that makes his GBA appearances so memorable, but the final product is too short and simplistic to hold your attention for more than a day.

The game's got a distinctive look to it, and some good moments, but some tedious collection tasks and exploration elements drag the game down.

The DC version of this graphically intensive platform adventure is sometimes fun but gets very old very quickly.

The Invisible Hours shifts depending on how you approach its story; scenes take on different meanings as you see them from different perspectives, and as a result, finding every detail in the bigger picture is rewarding. It strikes the same tone as an Agatha Christie novel and at times feels campy for it, but the characters are interesting and well-acted, making each trip through the same few minutes worth it just to see a different character's side of things.

Claws of Awaji is a difficult recommendation, but I do recommend it. The DLC wraps up the three lingering narrative threads of the main game's story, while transforming the main gameplay loop into a more enjoyable cat-and-mouse formula where the hunter becomes the hunted. Yasuke continues to drag this experience down, and is now impacting the emotional payoff of Naoe's story, but at least Naoe's shinobi fantasy is still one of the best Assassin's Creed experiences to date.

Soaked to the core in that quintessentially nineties cocktail of cynicism and an exultant love of violence, playing Act of Aggression feels like going back in time and returning to a home that only exists in your oldest memories. And that's special, even if it means dealing with some obtuse design issues.

This charming rhythm game is especially good for first-timers, but it's a little light on content.

The surreal world design of After Us' dystopian world carries the game, encouraging you to keep going even when the momentum-driven platforming and creative puzzles give way to tedious combat. Gaia isn't all that compelling a protagonist, but the stories she uncovers--whether they're of the Earth's final animals or the Devourers who killed them--make up for it, inviting you to delve deeper into the dark of After Us' dying world and uncover exactly how it all fell apart.

While I don't think Tides of Tomorrow rises to the same narrative highs as Road 96, its primary incentive is a great draw. It's a little weird to want to stalk other players through a digital world, watching and listening to their every move in order to better your own lot in life, but it's a compelling enough gameplay loop that I overlooked the shortcomings in the game's story and non-player characters. And even if I don't plan on playing the game again, it warms my heart to know that my digital ghost is now out there, potentially guiding other Tidewalkers that may need a little help.

It takes some time to get off the ground, but this traditional-style role-playing game is an enjoyable flight of fancy and fantasy.

Translating the lightning-quick close-quarters combat of the Bourne films into viscerally satisfying gameplay is no mean feat, but High Moon Studios has done it and done it well. The adventure is a bit short, and the solid gunplay becomes tedious the second time around. Still, the combat system alone makes this game worth playing, and the dramatic moments it creates are the real treat.