In many ways, Brain Age has become the ideal videogame gateway drug. The games are accessible to anyone, don't require any special physical dexterity or experience, and feature a regular reward system in their daily measurement of your brain age.

But I do know that, unlike most years, I really feel the improvements instead of just reading about them in a press release or seeing them on the back of the box. And when it comes to Madden, that's as big a difference as I've felt in half a decade.

Wii owners finally have the Tiger Woods game they should have had six months ago.

Everything is just as wonderfully crafted, over-the-top crazy, and mouse-crushingly intense as it was in the full game. It's more Painkiller, and that's what you'd expect from an expansion, right?

A beautiful example of how Maxis' long-running series can renew itself and even become appealing to console owners. There's plenty to do, a lot to discover and even when everything is done players can decide to stick around the islands and keep tinkering.

The team at Double Fine has managed to seamlessly combine sumptuous, mind-bending visuals and a downright funny script to create one of the most inventive games to hit the PS2.

Like peanut butter and chocolate, the combination of classic puzzle gameplay and RPG game mechanics results in something greater than the sum of its parts.

They've packed Sam and Max's world with so many great characters, locations, running gags and plot points that they seem to feel like they have to cram them all into every episode.

The excellent control and stage design mixed with the clever puzzles make this one of the better (and certainly one of the most thought provoking) platformers available on GBA.

While it won't be winning any beauty contests with its barebones 2D graphics, the play's the thing and the combination of solid controls and lots of content in the form of the technologies, units and variegated civilizations make Civ Rev an enjoyable and entertaining romp through the traditionally staid and somber realm of nation management.

The biggest drawback of this game is the inclusion of Venom as a playable character. He draaaags. He can't web swing (but he can cover vast distances with his leaps), he relies on brute strength rather than finesse, and you must also devour people in order to keep the suit from killing the man inside.

As long as you are aware of and accept Diablo 3's online limitations, I wholeheartedly recommend it. A week after launch, the servers are up and running smoothly, though "scheduled maintenance" still brings them down from time to time, usually in the wee hours of the morning. But solo players who would rather live their gaming lives offline -- or have less than perfect faith in the stability of their internet connections -- should probably hold out for the offline-friendly Torchlight 2 instead.

A wonderful title (with the kind of cerebral gameplay that seems to have taken a back seat to mindless shooters in recent years), which will keep you glued to your console for as long as it takes you to finish it.

What I'm not so sure about are the mini-games. These will help you practice your stroke/throw, but they're not much fun. The pitching mini-game is especially annoying.

It may not be hanging out in the rarified air that Madden and Sega's ESPN game breathe, but it finally deserves to be on the same playing field as them.

Hopefully next year will bring some real options for less arcadey play to satisfy a wider audience, but NHL 2K7 is still a reliably fun launch title for the PS3.

If you can approach GD2 on its own terms and conquer it, the utterly unique gameplay experience is simply, well, glorious.

As short as it is, Stubbs is an instant classic and should appeal to any gamer with even a slightly morbid sense of humor. It's the perfect Halloween rental.

Playing CS:GO reminded me just how much many of the new shooter features out there -- the Air Strikes, the perks, the tanks -- can help make up for a lack of core FPS skills. There's no faking it here, and if you really want to get right down to it and find out just how good of an online gunslinger you are, the crucible of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is a great place to do it.

The online experience was definitely the most fun aspect of game as a whole. Over a broadband connection lag was practically non-existent, but the biggest hook is racing against other non-CPU riders.

As a total package, it's hard to find many cracks in Tiger Woods 07. The game looks just about as good as its PS2 counterpart, has appealing style and presentation, and plays the part of genre-leader with aplomb.

In almost every way, this is a very good PC version, and definitely superior to the console versions. We got great graphics options (including that HD texture pack!), smooth performance, and customizable keys. It's also quite stable -- in almost 25 hours of play I hit exactly two crashes to desktop, and neither cost me any progress. If not for the irritating lack of consistently clickable menus Sleeping Dogs would be hard to complain about.

What was a tongue-in-cheek look at Cold War paranoia married to solid RTS gameplay has blossomed into a pure comedy that retains the easy-to-pick-up and addictive-as-peanuts gameplay of the best in the Command & Conquer franchise. It's not a game that will redefine strategy gaming, but it is one heck of an enjoyable ride.

Those who have mastered the LEGO Star Wars titles will discover that this game has a much greater emphasis on puzzle-solving than its spiritual predecessors had.

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.

All around, if there's anything to ding Ridge Racer 7 for, it's the sense that it's less a sequel and more of a decimal point. Call it Ridge Racer 6.5 or Ridge Racer 6: Director's Cut, it's pretty much the same thing, minus the achievement points (grrrr).

One of the game's strongest features is its highly bizarre and amusing story line, with a localization that Nintendo of America can be proud of.

The game features enough choices and entertaining kills to have you playing some missions more than once, striving for that elusive Silent Assassin rating.