If you or a person on your Christmas list would like an adventure game with a good short story and wouldn't mind a few old-school arcade moments, Atlantis Evolution might suffice, but it's far from being a must-play.

Irrational deserves kudos for recapturing the core "Tribes feel" that fans know and love: the high-flying, jetpack-powered combat is still as much a blast as it ever was.

For a lot of players, the excellent graphics and high levels of violence and sex appeal will be more than enough to keep Bloodrayne 2 spinning. It's really a shame that the A.I. is so daft, and even with all the acrobatics, the very linear levels don't truly captivate.

On its own merits, though, it's simple, fun, and fast, and this would be enough... if it existed in a void.

Most of the gameplay aspects are solid, the graphics are beautiful, and the quest is long. However, the relative lack of narrative elements prevented me from truly enjoying the wonderfully bizarre world Atlus has created.

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.

In part, Skin wants to be a party game, but the multiplayer modes do very little to expand on the solo game. You'll find run-of-the-mill split-screen competitive modes and the occasional variation on tag, but the underlying mechanics are all identical to what's in the solo missions.

The addition of the First Touch system makes the gameplay much more fluid, and it encourages you to improvise more often. Armchair managers will love the new career mode, one of the best you'll see this year.

Soccer sim fans are still much better off sticking with "Winning Eleven" despite its lack of license power. However, for online players, FIFA 2005 is worth taking a look at because it removes a lot of the offline AI issues.

With multiple squadrons to command individually or all at once, a thorough system for upgrading skills and equipment, and personality at every turn, Kingdom Under Fire strikes a great balance between mindless action and careful strategizing.

For a lot of players, the excellent graphics and high levels of violence and sex appeal will be more than enough to keep Bloodrayne 2 spinning. It's really a shame that the A.I. is so daft, and even with all the acrobatics, the very linear levels don't truly captivate.

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.

The addition of the First Touch system makes the gameplay much more fluid, and it encourages you to improvise more often. Armchair managers will love the new career mode, one of the best you'll see this year.

The addition of the First Touch system makes the gameplay much more fluid, and it encourages you to improvise more often. Armchair managers will love the new career mode, one of the best you'll see this year.

Combines great gameplay with entertaining characters and extremely pretty visuals for a surprisingly fun gaming experience.

Despite my gripes, there's enough good stuff in here to justify the purchase. Think of "Pit Fighter," "Spy Hunter II," and the like as elaborate mini-games that you can try once and then ignore forever.

A bunch of pointless hand-waving in a half-hearted attempt to pawn off a ponderous spreadsheet as a game.

Combines great gameplay with entertaining characters and extremely pretty visuals for a surprisingly fun gaming experience.

Midway's got your party covered. The included games are dying to be played in pairs or groups. In fact, many of them -- "Xenophobe" and "Timber," among others -- probably shouldn't be played solo.

It makes fun of itself relentlessly, yet still manages to be earnest when it matters, and the gameplay around which it's built takes the best elements of the Mario games' trademark simplicity, and constructs out of them a compelling, engrossing RPG.

Combines great gameplay with entertaining characters and extremely pretty visuals for a surprisingly fun gaming experience.

Despite my gripes, there's enough good stuff in here to justify the purchase. Think of "Pit Fighter," "Spy Hunter II," and the like as elaborate mini-games that you can try once and then ignore forever. No matter what your gaming tastes, you'll get your money's worth.

We can't help but think how much more enjoyable this game could have been with some better jokes, a few more interesting mini-games, and the ability to explore without loading screens every 15 seconds.

A weird uncomfortable reminder that computer games aren't really ready for this sort of explicit sexuality. Until it can be handled with a more nuance, I'll stick with the implied "Sims" stuff, thank you very much.

While it has the series' trademark snappy dialogue, sultry vixens, and more double entendres than a classic Rodney Dangerfield routine, it's missing one thing: the fun. The mini-games dragged after only a few hours, and getting through the game felt like a chore.

The graphics aren't all they could be, and the game suffers from a few crashing bugs, but it boasts a solid story, interesting characters, and diverse puzzles. You even get the first Law & Order game, "Dead on the Money," free in the package.

It hurts me to give this game a low score, because it really is a good concept that just failed in execution.

The PS2 version of the game looks and sounds much better than its Xbox counterpart. And the game's multiplayer implementation is some of the best yet on the PS2.