If you don't mind the half-baked jumping puzzles and tired character development, you'll find plenty to sink your teeth into.

If you're new to the whole Dance Dance "thing," then you'll have a blast with Mario Mix. Interacting with a game via the dance pad is quite a bit of fun, and there are enough things to unlock and other diversions to keep you busy for a while.

Admirably ambitious, yet also a victim of its own ambition, suffering from information/feature overload and a less-than-stellar interface.

As was the case in Mystery Dungeon, it's nice to take another trip though this monster-infested world in a game that doesn't play like, well, 90% of the other Pokémon titles. I just wish that Ranger's gameplay didn't grow old so quickly.

Older players will recognize its obvious inspiration, and some pre-teens may balk at the surprising level of difficulty, but Zelda knock-off or not, it's a fine game and proof that movie cash-ins on handhelds don't always stink.

It will both entertain and educate you about the basics of magic. It would have been nicer if the selection of tricks was more balanced, but overall it's another cool use of the DS.

It's a brilliant-looking game, developed by the artists at Square Enix, and it's great fun to boot. Just be ready for something quite different from the NBA.

The best of the Age of Sail series.

A spectacular game, but you can’t help but think it could have been deeper.

A cheery-looking game world but lousy, sleep-inducing gameplay.

It's exciting when a relatively unknown development house like Techland can spring forward with such an intriguing effort, and if nothing else, we applaud its ambition.

One thing that is sorely lacking in Rally Fusion is an onscreen map.

I would imagine that most people will finish and grow bored with Kororinpa in a couple of days. Still, it's one of those games that you really enjoy while it lasts -- it's just a little too simplistic for its own good.

I usually give bonus points for original concepts, but Lost in Blue is just too flawed for that type of consideration, and doesn't come close to achieving its goal.

The difficulty level may have been cranked up a little too high for the average gamer to enjoy the single-player experience, but the robust multiplayer component of the game helps to make up for it.

Where GTA used humor, masses of distractions, OTT violence, and a giant game world with a real sense of space and depth to mask the unimpressive visuals, Driver is the opposite, using an impressive physics engine and city to hide repetitive and languid gameplay that's becoming increasingly difficult to enthuse about.

Shiren is absolutely and utterly a game for the hardcore. Being flung back to level one for dumb luck or a simple error is infuriating, and Shiren lacks the storytelling polish that many gamers expect from their titles regardless of genre, but the core game is very well done.

Yes, the game engine may be creaking with stomach-churning slowdown on the all-new course, but the fun sense of freedom and all-new whacked-out characters still draw me in. If you've never Taxied, buy this on sight.

Fans will get a huge kick over how well it recreates Harry's world. I know a lot of multiple system owners are wondering if they should get this version of the game or go for the "prettier" versions. It's a tough call, really. The Wii controls are quite a bit of fun, but the 360 and PS3 versions looks quite a bit better (although the Wii version certainly doesn't look bad).

The historical sweep is fascinating, as is witnessing the advances and growth of your prospective civilization, but it's truly unfortunate that your participation in all of this couldn't be more involving and challenging.

A novice looking for an easy way to enter the world of virtual business-building would probably enjoy this game, but hardcore tycoons will find it a short-term diversion at best.

What a Real Time Strategy is meant to be. 'nuff said.

I can really only recommend this game to those who appreciate and enjoy all the nitty-gritty of the Indy racing sport. If you are one of those people, add about 15 points to my score.

It's everything reality television should be -- cruel, funny and heartless -- but it's over all too quickly.

Though getting through Ty 2 is particularly easy, it would likely be enough of a challenge for younger players to make this a good gateway game. The same humor, scripting, and play mechanics that feel childish to experienced players will be new and entertaining to those without experience.

While Electronic Art's blatant clone, "Simpsons Road Rage," has much improved graphics, a two-player mode, and free ride option, Crazy Taxi still comes out ahead in pure controllability and gameplay.

It's a golf game with strippers, but its gameplay won't be getting a huge tip.

Gratuitous Tank Battles may do a brilliant job of catering to some idiosyncratic gaming tastes, but I don't think it has much to offer the tower-defender or the strategist.

A bland third-person stealth adventure with sub-par combat and annoyingly stylized death sequences.

PQ isn't a perfect game, but it's still a darn good puzzler. Maybe I was simply falling for the game's gimmick, but given the amount of fast thinking that I was putting into those puzzles, I really did feel as though the game was measuring my intelligence.

The first game that made me want to spike my PSP in frustration. In that sense, it manages to truly recapture the home console experience of being angry enough with a game to destroy equipment. Past that, it's a title mired with long load times and not-so-great controls.

The multiplayer features in SimCity DS are so disappointing that one might start wondering about the exact meaning of the word "multiplayer" itself as seen on the back of the box.

Turns out to be a well-made game, but is so blatantly unoriginal that it may actually inspire resentment in players who are tired of the same old thing.

Rocks the 80s feels like it was slapped together with as minimal an effort as possible. A $50 price tag only adds insult to injury, as it's arguable whether it's even worth half that price.

A decent (yet sadly derivative) game lying underneath the mess.

It's a unique, well-realized action game that's like nothing else on the 360. If "EDF2" didn't exist, we'd like it even more.

A solid effort - it has some problems, but it's also got a lot of charm and intrigue going for it. The theme, visuals, and music will pull you in, and the story and wealth of options available to you as you play will help keep you hooked.

Multiplayer has its attributes, but stumbles hard when it comes to framerate and resembles a Monet painting at some points. Overall, I'd recommend it for single-player, but for Wi-Fi, well, I've offered my caveat emptors.

There's enough content and replay value to keep you busy for hours -- even more if you hook up with friend. Factoring all the elements this title offers makes it a no-brainer for anyone who's wanted a fighter that's simple to play, entertaining, and offers long-term value.

Where "GTA" used humor, masses of distractions, OTT violence, and a giant game world with a real sense of space and depth to mask the unimpressive visuals, Driver is the opposite, using an impressive physics engine and city to hide repetitive and languid gameplay that's becoming increasingly difficult to enthuse about.

Need for Speed: The Run is an odd duck. It's an arcade racer that does some things really well, but is insistent on having you interact at times with a Michael Bay-esque experience (I guess that's why he was asked to direct that trailer). Like his films, The Run is much more about style than substance. It's a decent arcade racer, and for those looking for a mindless racing experience, chances are you'll find something to like here.

Thanks to its branching era structure, you'll be able to play this one over and over again, and perhaps one day you'll build that perfect city for the ages.

Wii owners have been waiting a while for a top-notch FPS to call their own, and although the single-player mode has its faults, The Conduit's multiplayer experience helps to lessen the pain.

It's hard to really bash NHL 2K9 other than to say it's a little bit of hockey-lite. "NHL 09" offers more realism and gets our nod for overall long-term value.

Fail[s] to live up to its potential. What's left is simply a frustrating and tedious single-player game.

Packs a surprising amount of appeal.

Not quite great, but far from awful. As a result, you're far more likely to love than hate it.

The single-player modes are really lacking, which is really astounding since the multiplayer is so much fun.

There's no denying that serious stock car fans that own an Xbox 360 or PS3 will enjoy hitting the track with this racer; it's just a shame it doesn't crackle with the personality the real sport has been known for.

THDJ plays very, very well. The Wii's smart motion-sensitive control system is absolutely perfect for this kind of game.

Taking flight as the NiGHTS character is once again an engaging gameplay experience.

If you liked the original, or are intrigued at the notion of dominating the one-on-one world, there's ample reason to pick this one up.

The cast of fighters is shallow, filled with too many slow bruisers.

As a final misstep, there's no final, ultimate puzzle that combines all the mechanics I'd learned -- it just sort of ends.

At around 30 bucks, Ghost Squad is a great addition to your library if, and only if, you are into light-gun games that aren't heavy on the realism (ie, most of them). It's absurd and comical, and those aren't necessarily bad things. In our case, we certainly had no trouble laughing our way through some surprisingly entertaining light-gun action.

Haven tries to go in several directions at once. Alas, rather than excelling, it ends up doing a fairly mediocre job of almost everything.

What makes Grunty's Revenge work so well is that it never becomes boring or overly repetitive.

An entertaining collection of shooters, but it's kind of funny and kind of sad that it doesn't play to perfection with its namesake peripheral.

If it sounds like I have a love/hate relationship with Risen 2, then guilty as charged. This is one of those games that's brimming with quirks, ranging from the minor (killed turkeys give you chicken meat) to momentously glitchy (complete a couple missions in the "wrong" order late in the game and an overarching quest breaks). And for all the artifact-gathering and hand-wringing over Risen 2's "big bad," the final fight is anti-climactic and relatively easy. But... for all its problems, I still recommend this game to RPG fans who are forgiving angels in real life, but unforgiving scurvy dogs in-game.

One of the first fun Sonic experiences in some time. The overall experience of navigating through Sonic and the Secret Rings doesn't manage to bring the series back to glory, but at least it gives it some life.

Graffiti connoisseurs will love the real-life taggers that make cameos, as well as the actual art that Trane puts up. The game also features a fantastic soundtrack, as well as one of the most impressive collections of celebrity voices in recent memory.

A sloppy port of a game I found to be fairly mediocre.

The dynamic campaign is one of the best ever.

Disappointing, and CFS3 actually falls below standards set by previous series titles.

The first-person shooter action doesn't compare with the likes of "Half-Life" or "Red Faction" and the team-based strategy element couldn't carry the night vision goggles of either "SOCOM" release.

Too simple for its own good, yet somehow likable in the end. While the beat 'em up action is undoubtedly repetitive, it was just solid enough to keep me playing for another level.

Lots to see and do for kart racing fans -- if they don't mind the atmosphere.

Despite its technical issues Freestyle Street Basketball is a charming, fun street-style basketball MMO with a great value proposition. With its five-minute play time and free low-level game, it can be enjoyed by those looking for a quick game on an afternoon lunch break.

If you're looking for a quality platformer on the DS, there are plenty of better choices out there. If you're looking for a funny game, however, The Simpsons Game ranks near the top of the list.

For anyone who feels like hip-hop is more than the soundtrack to the suburban mall thug experience, the game is really a disservice to a rich culture that involves more than misogyny and violence.

Sadly, a lot of the goodwill generated by Pariah is killed when the bugs come crawling out.

It looks amazing, sounds great, and most importantly, it's a lot of fun. What's even more impressive is that all of this entertainment is offered at such a reasonable price.

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.

It's passable at best, and surpassed by The Suffering in nearly every aspect. Sadly, Sony had the right idea in not bringing this title to the U.S., as it simply brings nothing new to the table.

If you're the kind of gamer that likes to set two CPU-controlled combatants battle against each other in "Street Fighter II" and bet on the outcome with your friends, then this may be your type of game.

This is a fun, visually unique title that shouldn't be overlooked. Pity that the multiplayer doesn't truly shine.

It's rough around the edges in some spots, and can become infuriatingly difficult at times, but if you stick with it, you'll probably get a lot of enjoyment out of it.

The graphics and sounds are so well done you can almost taste the dust!

The most amazing feature of Night of 100 Frights is that almost every aspect of the game, starting with the background story, mimics a Scooby Doo episode.

Quake 3: Team Arena, in a word, rocks. The quality associated with id Software shines through in this mission pack. It is definitely worth your money -- go and buy it. I'd write more here, but I need to go play more Team Arena. I wish I were joking.

The headset is a gimmick, you and your team aren't always on the same page, and the whole thing plays like just another forgettable first-person shooter.

Mario, get with it -- get hipper, get slicker, and get as good as you outta be. Right now, you're phoning it in.

Of course, the combination of sim and action game is sometimes a bit jarring, making the game seem like it doesn't really know what it wants to be. Regardless, Thrillville is a fun game, and if you're a fan of sim games on the PC, this would be a good way to introduce the genre to a child or younger sibling.

Even playing on the easiest setting, the difficulty regularly spikes to bowel-clenching impossibility. This wouldn't be so bad if the checkpoints flowed a little more freely, as most of the difficulty spikes tend to arrive after a protracted battle has already left you tattered and bleeding.

It has a less-than-inspired storyline, but the creative and visually fun ways that you can dispatch of the countless number of enemies keeps things from becoming too ho-hum.

A turbulent ride between decent action, half-baked graphics and camera, and occasionally clunky, but undeniably authentic presentation.

If you loved "Armored Core 3," you're going to have a field day with this.

There's a good game here, but it's buried underneath layers of mediocre to substandard cosmetics and an unforgiving learning curve.

The biggest control-related issues arise from the system's imperfect recognition of your motions and button presses.

Playing NFL Head Coach and having a good time while doing so is a daunting task, one far more challenging than taking the Browns to the Super Bowl.

While it doesn't let you bang away with the 1000-plus monsters available in the Yu-Gi-Oh! games (at least not yet), it does offer somewhat deeper and more complex gameplay.

The lack of multiplayer is a real bummer, and the last-gen visuals are hard to get excited over, too.

Let's face it, if you've been playing for this long, you aren't playing for the eye candy and you can probably wait for the 3D version to be fully cleansed before diving into it.

Another problem with the gameplay is the surprising simplicity of it. Sure, there are puzzles to solve, but they rarely require any sort of deep thinking.

With a slow and chunky multiplayer component, there's not much reason to jump into the driver's seat.

As it is now, MxO isn't too different from other MMORPGs, and in fact, it's much less immediately exciting and accessible than many of the more recent ones.

I realized Project 8 was playing like an updated version of the original Pro Skater series. Hardcore fans will likely bemoan the simplicity of the game, but it does allow amateurs to enjoy the experience more.

Though it's hardly sufficient to make you forsake home console warfare for handheld ops, and the dollars-per-hour ratio would give any gamer pause, Medal of Honor Heroes 2 boasts enough polish and design acumen to be worth an expensive few days on the front lines for those who simply want another WW2 shooter experience.