Although it's certainly got Infinity Ward's fingerprints all over it, Black Ops is definitely Treyarch's baby. As a fan of the franchise, I'm happy to see that the future of the series is in good hands, and it'll (hopefully) be nice to see the folks at Treyarch finally get some respect from hardcore gamers.

Even though I cursed and swore my way through the bulk of the game, the characters and the story moved me in a way that very few games do. But, epic disappointment or epic tale, it definitely earns its name.

A great racing game wrapped in a series of bad design decisions.

What makes the multiplayer so much fun is the constant balance between being the hunter and the prey. Stalking enemies around the map is a lot of fun (even when I end up on the business end of a blade before I can make my kill), and patience has never been so important.

What makes the multiplayer so much fun is the constant balance between being the hunter and the prey. Stalking enemies around the map is a lot of fun (even when I end up on the business end of a blade before I can make my kill), and patience has never been so important.

I've never played anything quite like it, and I think I'm ready to retire my DDR dance pads permanently, because this is the real revolution.

Too bad money is so ridiculously easy to accrue that Fable III's silly shift into a morality tale about the burden of the crown falls flat.

Ultimately, whether or not you enjoy Fallout: New Vegas depends on your tolerance for handling bugs. Personally, I didn't find them distracting enough to ruin the experience for me, and a few crashes over the course of 80+ hours felt like a small price to pay for one of my favorite games of the year.

What we get is an amalgam that is best labeled "Battlefield Warfare" -- an admittedly entertaining concoction, but one that tastes awfully familiar.

Dead Rising 2's replayability is a testament to the fully realized burg that is Fortune City. I want to meet more nutjob Psychopaths; I want to try more games of chance scattered around the casinos; I want to spend an afternoon shirking my in-game responsibilities to create new tools of destruction with my hard-earned Combo Cards.

Kirby's Epic Yarn is, at its quilted heart, an enjoyable 2D platformer that anyone who understands the language of fun can pick up and play, and it has an aesthetic that you can marvel at -- stress-free -- from beginning to end.

What we get is an amalgam that is best labeled "Battlefield Warfare" -- an admittedly entertaining concoction, but one that tastes awfully familiar.

Dead Rising 2's replayability is a testament to the fully realized burg that is Fortune City. I want to meet more nutjob Psychopaths; I want to try more games of chance scattered around the casinos; I want to spend an afternoon shirking my in-game responsibilities to create new tools of destruction with my hard-earned Combo Cards.

Extended stretches of confused incredulity, punctuated now and then by bursts of intense anger. And yeah -- I just equated FFXIV with a filthy bathroom.

Suffice it to say that while it's not a perfect game, it's definitely the best Halo game yet and a fittingly epic goodbye to fans from Bungie, the developer that helped to launch a million Xboxes.

Other M is a sum of imperfect parts and compromised ideas.

But really, apart from the wooden voiceovers and the somewhat-blocky graphics, VC2 has everything going for it.

For such an intricate setup, Mafia II doesn't quite deliver on the promise of making you feel like a gangster until the last few chapters. You spend a lot of the game watching things develop slowly from behind the glass, as Vito makes a name for himself in action sequences separated by a little too much downtime.

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.

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.

The multiplayer is so smooth, so challenging, and so much plain-old-fun that I can only think of one RTS I ever played that is outright better. The single-player is weaker, in many ways, than that of other RTS titles -- but hey, you don't have to play it, after all. And so, the line you've all been waiting for: Yes, Blizzard has indeed done it again.

It's inevitable that Limbo will be compared to 2008's Braid, but I think this game's sum takeaway is more in line with Portal -- an intricate and internally consistent world that communicates itself through simple mechanics and a creative, minimalist structure on which to hang events that happen to a vulnerable protagonist.

This amounts to way more than the Super Mario Galaxy 1.5 you expected.

Unfortunately, the most fitting literary comparison is that several long stretches of repetitive gameplay will make you feel like you're wandering aimlessly through the woods of an unedited novel.

With Red Dead Redemption, Rockstar succeeds in creating one of the most impressive open worlds I've ever seen in a game, and it's telling that -- even after playing for over 30 hours -- all I want to do is get back on my horse and gallop back into the wilderness.

With Red Dead Redemption, Rockstar succeeds in creating one of the most impressive open worlds I've ever seen in a game, and it's telling that -- even after playing for over 30 hours -- all I want to do is get back on my horse and gallop back into the wilderness.

Between this and MM9, it's clear that Capcom's cybernetic mascot's still got some kick. I don't know about you, but I could do with annual 8-bit meat-grinders from now until 20XX.

Straight fights in C&C4 play a lot like a boxing match between two guys with iron jaws and teensy weensy hands. You and your opponent can pound away at each other till you're both spent like an addict's last dollar, but nobody's knocking anybody out.