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.