Unfortunately, unless you're extremely into music making, your fun will run out before too long. The inability to save anything really hurts as well.

Although the game still leaves a bit to be desired (a coherent storyline, for example), the gorgeous graphics and intense action definitely make it worth picking up if you're a fan of fighting games.

A half-hearted attempt to make the game even more ubiquitous than it already is. Very little effort was put into making it a compelling experience in its own right, and thus, you have very little incentive to experience it.

These diminutive mechs pack a strong punch.

It's so faithful to the PS2 version that it's almost terrifying. On second thought, the terror comes from the load times, which are abysmally long. Between that, the sync issues in multiplayer, and the mediocre Arcade Mode, keep this game from nearing perfection.

It may not be revolutionary or technically stunning, but it is a lot of fun; and that's what games are all about.

After playing the three excellent console versions of Midway Arcade Treasures, it was a major disappointment to see just how half-assed Extended Play ended up being.

A great version of an RPG milestone. The story seems a bit simplistic by today's standards, but it's also uncommonly charming. The quicksave feature makes it an excellent candidate for fun on the go.

It may not be revolutionary or technically stunning, but it is a lot of fun; and that's what games are all about.

The game's impressive A.I. and variety of gameplay will keep players coming back for more, even with its noticeable flaws.

The idea is solid, but the haphazard controls suck most of the enjoyment from these rails. We'd like to see more dragons in our games, but requiring the use of an ice pack after bouts with the stylus seems unnecessary.

It's fair to say that Sims 2 for the PSP would've been among the best of the console ports, but a couple of glaring issues drag it down. In particular, the load times are a nightmare.

Battles isn't as multifaceted as Advance Wars, nor does it convey the fairy-tale personality of its console cousins, but we encourage you to look past the plain façade: there's some unexpectedly engaging gameplay buried under it.

We can't deny the appeal, even amongst the flaws, but when you're left imagining how much better a version of "Sands of Time" or "Two Thrones" would have been, it doesn't matter how faithful the port is.

One of those "if only" games: if only the RPG elements had been fully developed; if only the game world were larger; if only the combat were smoother and not slow as molasses; if only the A.I. were stronger; if only the bugs and general sloppiness had been worked out.

Divested of any real spark, Tokobot runs out of steam quickly, mires itself in mediocrity, and never manages to rise above it.

It's endlessly addictive, and thanks to its design, it'll be a long time before you run out of things to do in it. Thanks to the brilliant translation, it's also one of the funniest games that I've playing in some time.

A perfect example of how to bring a fleshed-out console sport onto a handheld, and all of the seemingly frivolous extras only help to enhance the experience when you're tired of battling the A.I.

The multiplayer more than covers the bases, though, as Strikers will join Super Smash Bros. Melee, the Super Monkey Ball series, and the Mario Party games as one of the 'Cube's best titles for armchair warfare.

All of these settings, without exception, are stunning. Whether it's the blowing curtains that festoon the royal palace, the mysterious glowing blue torches in a crypt, or the lovely geometric patterns, arched doors, and latticework screens used as architectural highlights, the game's environments are beautiful.

A return to grace for our troubled royal acrobat.

As a gameplay dynamic, the dark prince is great, and works on multiple levels.

Now that the prince is once again on firm footing, it'd be a crime not to let his adventures continue.

While the EA game is solid, it just doesn't stack up with 2K6.

It rarely does anything wrong, but at the same time doesn't earn high marks in too many categories. PoPoLoCrois is just an average role-playing game, made better by the lack of competition and the fact that you can take it with you.

So let's see - we've got a poor driving engine, broken crash mechanics, stripped down modes (due to a lack of cars), bugs and some below average audio. Sound like a winner? No. If you want to see a quality portable racer, check this title out on the PSP.

There's enough action so that it doesn't really feel like an RPG, and the humor makes it all the sweeter.

It's easy to recommend this package, as it offers up a pair of games that are not only still relevant, but plenty of fun to boot.

No matter how you slice it, Kinetic gives back what you jump, move, and punch into it. Though it's not a replacement for an actual trainer or a full-fledged gym, it does provide a little more entertaining spin on the whole exercise idea.

It's a decent snowboard game in almost every sense... Maybe if EA licensed it, nurtured it, and turned it into a portable version of "SSX" we'd be onto something.

The haphazard implementation of the few good ideas in here, combined with ugly production values, makes looking for any diamonds in this rough a worthless endeavor.

Comes off as an uneven experience, but one with plenty of invigorating moments that make the whole thing feel worth it.

During its best moments, it's certainly one of the most exciting and engrossing games I've played in a long time. It's just unfortunate that the apparent cut corners take the wind out of its sails sometimes.

The most astute comment I've heard about Battlefield 2 still applies to Special Forces: everything about it sucks except for the actual game.

During its best moments, it's certainly one of the most exciting and engrossing games I've played in a long time. It's just unfortunate that the apparent cut corners take the wind out of its sails sometimes.

Instead of delivering a total experience, Kong feels more like the developers decided to throw together two half-finished games and hope for the best. The end result is an average experience.

While the EA game is solid, it just doesn't stack up with 2K6.

Comes off as an uneven experience, but one with plenty of invigorating moments that make the whole thing feel worth it.

As much as I'm a fan of the DBZ series, if I was to choose between this title and a King of Fighters title for the GBA, I'd choose the latter without batting an eye.

There aren't a lot of nice things to say about the single-player experience, which fails to deliver on multiple fronts. Still, if you want to check out one of the best multiplayer experiences the Xbox 360 has to offer, look no further.

You're not really getting anything new, but you are getting a solid action game using a tried-and-true formula that's really difficult not to like.

You want 50's music? Buy a CD. Grab a DVD if you want to see the guy move. But if you want to pretend to be Curtis Jackson, take your fifty bucks out to a paintball range and let someone drill you nine times. It'll be a better experience than this.

If you want arcade style racing complete with high-speed corner bending, annoyingly foppish announcers and the most fun driving you can have without smashing the other guy off the road... then you want to pick up Ridge Racer 6.

Rare is to be commended for the technical prowess on show here, but get it for the co-op and multiplayer experience rather than the diluted story mode.

One of the finest FPSs ever created. Thanks to a combination of sharp visuals, teeth-rattling sound effects, and tricky enemy AI, you'll be on the edge of your seat from the moment you're dropped into combat until your dying breath.

There's a severe lack of engagement on the part of the player.

One unique aspect is that, much like in the real world, there are no extra lives. Once you're killed, you're dead. The rest of your team will have to make due without you.

You want 50's music? Buy a CD. Grab a DVD if you want to see the guy move. But if you want to pretend to be Curtis Jackson, take your fifty bucks out to a paintball range and let someone drill you nine times. It'll be a better experience than this.

It's a real shame that Earth 2160 is so hostile to new players, because it features a powerful graphics engine, a deep and rewarding game design, and potentially limitless replayability with all its flexibility.

Like a good horror movie, there are plenty of jump-out-of-your-seat scares, but the game is just as effective when you're imagining what could happen.

THAW for Xbox 360 is a phenomenal game...if you haven't picked it up already.

Definitely the best DS game to date that has been produced by non-Japanese developers. The single-player story mode is goofy and fun, classic mode rocks, and the online multiplayer serves as a standard for what future DS WiFi games should use for their website/DS integration.

If you're looking for a deep racing Sim with a community of opponents ready to go 24 hours a day, this is your game. It's easy on the eyes and a blast to play.

For regular gamers, this is more of the same with a few slight twists. Unfortunately, none of the twists happen in gameplay, where they're desperately needed.

You'll likely be so enthralled by the riveting story that you simply won't notice the hours flying by. Of course, that's also due in no small part to the fact that the game is unsatisfyingly short.

NBA Live 06 knocks the progress of this series back to the Stone Age. It sacrifices everything (dunk contest, Superstar Freestyle moves, Franchise mode) for next-gen graphics, yet ends up looking worse than "NBA 2K6" -- which kept all of its features in tact.

The graphics are amazing, the gameplay isn't perfect, but decent, and the loading mini-game is very promising for what developers can do in the future with this new hardware. Unfortunately, the frame rate is atrociously choppy during replays, and the online is possibly the worst I've ever experienced with any online game that actually connected me with an opponent instead of just not connecting.

This reality has its ups and downs: there's nothing new besides graphics, but it was a stellar package to begin with, but the online is super laggy.

For me, the biggest shortcoming of Amped 3 was the lack of any decent multiplayer gameplay. There's nothing happening with Xbox Live -- save for some cool, but basic score tracking -- and the offline multiplayer is limited to the rather disappointing co-op two-player sledding events.

It's got more than enough fast-paced action to give gamers their adrenaline fix, and it does it with all sorts of visual style.

If you're the type of player who just wants to play the nicest looking football game in history, buying Madden NFL 06 is a no-brainer.

The third-person perspective is a bust, and the gameplay is often too linear and tedious. On the bright side, fans of police procedurals and Law & Order in particular should find the cases interesting to unravel.

At least the audio captures a bit of the enjoyably cornball feel of the film. The bugs and guns don't make much of an impression, but troops utter intentionally cheesy lines like, "I'm so bad I scare myself!"

There's no mode, though, where adding human players makes the arcade action more compelling. Whether playing humans or CPU, Infected feels pretty much the same.

This game stays truer to its roots than any other currently surviving hit game series from the 80s, and it's all the better for it; it shows us that radical rethinking isn't always the key -- that developers can preserve the look, feel, and soul of a series across decades.

Anyone who loves Pac-Man will be thrilled. Anyone looking for something completely unique and original may be disappointed.

The lack of speed is a real problem here.

The PS2 version is, unfortunately, the least graphically impressive of the bunch and does not support online play, unlike the Xbox. But no matter which platform you're playing on, Most Wanted is still a hell of a value for the money.

Pulse-pounding car chases, lighting-fast races, and a beautifully crafted game world.

I can't help but admire the beauty and power crammed into this game. Aside from a few minor online quibbles, you'd be hard pressed to find a better, enjoyable racing game to dig into this holiday season.

The constant action means the Harry Potter series has always lent itself well to the video-game format, and thankfully (albeit surprisingly) EA has mostly improved upon their winning formula, while upping the ante visually and adding welcome multiplayer features, easily making the Goblet of Fire their best adaptation yet.

Complete with more bugs than month-old flypaper sitting outside a slaughterhouse, True Crime: New York City is utterly mediocre.

A highly entertaining RPG that no PSP-owning fan of the genre should pass up. Your socks won't be blown off, but your role-playing desires will be satiated. Isn't that more important?

The bugei gimmick is really clever, and kept driving me to play more. I can't say as much about the actual gameplay and story, however.

Operation Spy proves there's plenty of spy-related mini-games yet to be made, but ripping them out of the context of some kind of story means it's all pretty boring.

The designers did attempt to break up the simplistic game play a bit by forcing Sonic and Blaze to stop and fight a handful of mechanical terrors every once in a while, but it doesn't really add much to the overall game.

Some may find the story too obtuse, while others might take the route of PC graphical snobbery, but rest assured that there is no other like Half-Life 2 for the Xbox, which has now become my all-time favorite title for the system, and a massively strong contender for the Xbox game of the year.

The lack of speed is a real problem here.

The Xbox version, in addition to being considerably better-looking than the PS2 version, also supports Xbox Live online play for head-to-head racing, though seemingly must-have features, like co-op racing or the ability to play as the cops, didn't make it into the online portion of the game.

What's crucial to fans, though, is that many of the issues that have plagued the previous Ultramix releases have been completely ironed out this time around.

The lack of speed is a real problem here.

With three dozen licensed cars ranging from the new Mustang to the perennial street racing favorite Subaru STi, a meaty 15-20 hour story mode and loads of optional challenges beyond that, Most Wanted is one game you're going to be playing into the wee hours.

While The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe does have some issues with the A.I. not being smart enough to help you out when you most need it, it's not bad enough to make this a totally horrible game.

The difficulty and level design problems are a real shame because when it's good, Narnia is really a lot of fun, but when the designers decided to make it really tough, they managed to sap most of the fun out of what should have been a whimsical action ride through the frozen land of Narnia.

No care was taken to immerse players into the world they've lived with since Lewis' tale was first published. And that's a shame.

The online shortcomings are annoying, yes, but very minor, and they are more than made up for by the amazing single-player content and local WiFi gameplay.

With new features, including the killer GM mode and highly improved visuals, it's absolutely the best wrestling game to release on this generation of consoles.

While The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe does have some issues with the A.I. not being smart enough to help you out when you most need it, it's not bad enough to make this a totally horrible game.

The experience of playing this game can be roughly compared to swimming through a pile of sewage to get to a diamond ring. There's a great game buried in the coded-up wreckage that comes out of the X3: Reunion box; it's probably not worth the effort to dig for it, though.

Few games in recent years have been laugh-out-loud funny, but The Movies generates so much random silliness that - even when things are going wrong - you can still have a good time.

The constant action means the Harry Potter series has always lent itself well to the video-game format, and thankfully (albeit surprisingly) EA has mostly improved upon their winning formula, while upping the ante visually and adding welcome multiplayer features, easily making the Goblet of Fire their best adaptation yet.

And a note: there's no reason to pay an extra $5 for the DS version when the GBA version's only lacking repetitive mini-games.

All In seems like Crave's attempt to bet the farm on nothing more than a high card. The few improvements the game makes over last year's entry pale in comparison to its shortcomings.

The multiplayer experience is amazing, and the crosstalk feature adds a unique element to fans of the series.

Thanks to one of the best storylines we've seen in quite a while (as well as a heaping helping of good old-fashioned violence), Gun isn't a gaming experience that we'll soon forget.

Not only giving us a relatively fresh and underutilized theme, but also by mixing up gameplay and including a stats and inventory system that give you freedom (well, some freedom) on how to build your character.

That makes the battle tricks on hand in Suikoden Tactics nice twists on the staid tactical RPG. But there's not enough battle, and too much chaff to sort through in order to find it.

Dancing and singing simply takes too much coordination, and the steps aren't timed well enough with the music to make them feel as natural as they should've.