Eliminator improves on its PS2 predecessor. It has more modes, more customization parts, and makes for a respectable single-player experience. But the sketchy controls and oftentimes sleep-inducing levels and presentation keep it from being the king of street.

Its toughness means that for the bad tempered out there, this game is a sure source of busted controllers. And its visual and story blandness might be a turnoff.

The slow pace, poor voice-overs and lack of handheld convenience lends WCP2 a strong sense of "thank god it's over" whenever it's time to switch off the PSP - and no game should ever do that.

If you like the idea of flying a cool-looking helicopter in a 2D action game that makes you think, Choplifter HD is totally worth checking out. When it works, it's old-fashioned and yet not quite like anything else out there currently. If the chopper had controlled just a bit more nimbly, it's possible all of the game's problems would disappear or at least be reduced to much more tolerable levels.

There’s some minigames and a wi-fi Battle mode, but good luck trying to play with a friend more than once. We wanted to adore Cookie & Cream; it’s a shame we only get a clumsy mess.

Most levels in Diner Dash: Sizzle and Serve last five minutes tops, which makes it a flexible on-the-go offering. We’re increasingly annoyed by publishers’ tendencies to toss a casual PC game onto portable consoles for a notably higher price than its PC version.

But if you’re not a huge fan of the existing franchise, there’s not much here to make it worth your while.

A kaleidoscope of trippy, tracer-leaving characters parade across the screen, dazzling you into that state of catatonic play where concerns outside the game itself become completely irrelevant.

These are some of gaming's all-time classics, and they still deliver. It's just that, like a swimsuit model who just happens to be wearing muddy, chicken crap-encrusted overalls over her bikini, some of the magic of the original games is concealed by adjustments that were made but not needed or needed but not made.

Sadly, aside from a sharp online Wii experience, Conduit 2 rarely impresses, relying too much on generic drudgery and sad attempts to capture the magic of more popular titles; worse yet, the storyline and characters seem aimless and forgettable.

Our compulsion to keep playing "just one more level" meant that our feelings and hands would get hurt along the way, but in the end we liked what we saw.

Although a great initial distraction for Potterheads, the novelty of Harry Potter Quidditch Champions fades to reveal a competent yet insubstantial grind-a-thon. With questionable voice acting, childish animation, and a flimsy campaign to blitz through in three hours flat, even the biggest Wizarding World fans will struggle to stay engaged – unless staring down the barrel of another battle pass appeals to you.

Phantasy Star Portable’s arenas offer loads of loot if you’re in need of satisfying a role-playing craving. The problem is that it’s designed for extended sessions rather than portable play, and you’ll spend as much time talking about a rabbit-eared robot’s feelings as you will slaughtering legions of monsters.

A successful sequel where it counts the most, only a few potholes slow The Crew 2 down in its drive to become the ultimate road trip.

State of War doesn't offer much variety in terms of gameplay, but it does offer up a fun hack-and-slash game that can be picked up and played for a few minutes or a few hours.

As the name suggests, Rivals plays well against a friend. Racing the computer is cool, but costing your bud the race with a last-minute cheap shot is a whole lot better.

Its portrayal of the world's greatest fictional detective does the license justice, and its narrative intrigues up until its satisfying conclusion, even if getting there can be a pain sometimes. In other words, it's all elementary, my dear friends.

Another ludicrous spectacle, but Volition’s patchy action/comedy sandbox doesn’t prove to be a gangster’s paradise.

You’ll need an appreciation for the cube itself to get the most out of this - and you may want to destroy whoever programmed the chirpy music and decided to call the cubes “cubies” and give them a story - but it’s a solid value for puzzle players.

F1 2014 is a fun, accessible and authentic racing sim. But the differences over last year's game are slight and with the classic mode removed, the package it offers is inferior to F1 2013.

Still a good time, but like all sparse arcade compilations, your mileage may vary.

The problem with the game is that it really isn’t a game at all. We’re not just saying it’s too linear – what little (very little) gameplay you’ll find smattered throughout is completely spoon-fed to you.

Just don’t expect to do well against the seemingly impossible programmed computer opponents.

Kudos to Namco Bandai for raising the bar on 3D fighters' frame rates, but beyond that, it's tough to get excited about a game that seems content with the bare minimum.

If you were asked to imagine a truly average open-world action-adventure in 2023, you'd likely come up with something like Atlas Fallen. If very little here is actually dreadful, not much more is original, or imaginative, or genuinely entertaining either, nor is it even especially polished. You've likely seen it all before, in other words. And if you haven't, there are better places to start.

Ultimately, Rise & Fall is about pretty units killing each other in a beautifully drawn environment and little more. It's a good strategy skirmish, but it falls short of eternal glory.

Between the NFL Network announcer that has the same canned sound bite for common transactions and the lousy framerate of the in-game action, there’s a decidedly second-class-citizen feel from the get-go.

A fun little game that will probably do a better job in stirring nostalgia in those who were playing it 16 years ago rather than drawing in any new players.

Borderlands 2 remains an excellent game--unfortunately the Vita port makes too many concessions. Frequent frame dips, sluggish response, and OK controls make it hard to recommend.

God of War Sons of Sparta struggles to deliver on the best of God of War or the best the Metroidvania genre has to offer. Combat is dull and lifeless despite a handful of nice ideas, and it's visually ugly and muddy. Even lacking in brutal finishers, this all feels quite tame. It's not bad, but serviceable struggles to excite – and that's a sin for God of War.

So what would the average person want with a tough-as-nails, sloppy conversion of a year-old adventure? Nothing. Even the hardcore Ys fans should skip the PSP game and go straight for the PS2 verison.

Despite its unattractive exterior, Puzzle Kingdoms shines where it counts – fun, addicting puzzles with tons of meaningful customization options, and no BS filler (like, ahem, PQ Galactrix’s tedious leap gate hacking).

Shining Force EXA will pass the time; it's just that your memory of it will, ironically, be worn dull six months from now.

If you're looking for a family-friendly kart racer, this is it. It's super-slick, charmingly funny and exciting to play. Its appeal is universal in the best sense of the word, never being too dumbed down for the hardcore or too complex for the casual.

An encouraging debut for the big new rival to WWE, with loads of welcome throwback nods to No Mercy and Fire Pro, and a career mode you won’t be able to resist playing through multiple times.

Rayman Raving Rabbids is a direct port of a game clearly designed for the Wii to platforms that don't even support the core appeal. It's sad now that the bunny that demos the Wii's controls before every event is replaced by... empty space.

While NBA Live may not be our absolute favorite portable hoops game this fall, it definitely holds its own as a worthwhile investment of $40. Yes, that’s 10 more bucks than you’ll pay for The Inside or 2K10 (something to consider, for sure), but there’s plenty to keep you busy all season long.

Bogged down by performance issues and flat characters, Little Town Hero tells a formulaic story set in a beautiful place, strung together by complex, engaging, and gleefully rewarding battles.

Though hard to grasp for the uninitiated, Telltale's Game of Thrones is a truly meaty addition to the established tale, creating a gut-twisting fantasy drama that will leave you feeling absolutely awful, just like Game of Thrones should.

A pretty, mostly typical RPG wrapped around a deep, compelling battle system and more than 100 collectible monsters.

Once all of your goals are completed, you get a feeling of accomplishment, but lose some of the replayablity of other Sims games - you've seen one uncharted island, you've seen 'em all - and the thought of having to harvest all those vines, chop wood, find berries, pick leaves, catch fish, light fires, build furniture, find shelter and identify plants might not sound appealing.

We may be decidedly old-school, but there's no denying that it kicks ass getting our game on with the likes of Wilt the Stilt, Oscar Robertson, and dozens of other hoop heroes.

It's hard to forget that even after the numerous PC updates, you're playing a nearly seven year-old game, and after a few hours, it feels that way. If you are looking to take a trip back to the glory days of Quake mods, Nexuiz is what you are looking for. Just don't expect to stay for long.

It's hard to recommend NBA Live 06 for purchase just yet. It's almost certain to be a must-buy monster in future years when the exploit is fixed and the feature set is restored, but you'll have to decide if a drop-dead gorgeous game with only a season mode is worth your 60 bones in the meantime.

Ratatouille offers some multiplayer modes around cooking, but if you’re looking to get dizzy with a friend, we suggest doing something fun, like blowing up balloons. And then you can throw a party...and celebrate not playing Ratatouille on the DS.

Chances are that NFL Head Coach won't cure your football jones unless heavy-duty statistical simulators are up your alley. On the other hand, there's so much to do - and gobs of hours that can be invested - that it's likely to keep fantasy football maniacs going for months (or at least until the next Madden comes out).

While it's nice to hear the voices of the various captains (especially Shatner and Stewart), it never feels like a Trek adventure. As an action game, it suffers from poor controls and awful fleet (read: wingman) commands that gum up the works.

Looking for a worthwhile on-the-couch multiplayer game? Tiny Brains delivers with its fun puzzle-based story mode and score-driven challenge modes.

The individual sports woven into this collection may not be quite as fleshed-out as you'd expect from standalone games, but there's enough depth and variety to merit some marathon rounds alone or with friends. It's easy to get sucked into a quick game or two and wind up blowing through hours of matches.

Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey is a brilliant tech demo for an RPG system that has the potential to revolutionize the way we progress our characters in games, I just wish it there had been a little less proof of concept and a little more fun.

You'll get at least some satisfaction from seeing your gradual progress over time... until you remember that it just means you're getting better at playing so-so minigames.

The Random Encounter is just, well, bad. Seeing our favorite enemies rendered in 16 bits is really just not worth even the very small amount of time or money you'll spend playing this game - particularly when there are other worthwhile demakes or Flash games available for free.

There's not a ton of difference between this and the first Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Heroes, but the enhancements that are here make this a notably better game than the first. We recommend it, but it's a real shame that so much of this will be a bit too familiar to most players.

The battle system, however complicated, works - but it's just not that fun, and the sense of savage satisfaction that comes from finally winning a battle after numerous failures isn't enough to make up for the frustration.

While the title is easily one of the most visually striking experiences on the platform, its lack of substantial content, especially for solo players, makes it difficult to recommend at its current $15 price point.

SimCity's a mess of moving parts, occasionally clicking into place and allowing for brilliant experiences before coming undone and tearing everything down. With updates to both server stability and the game itself, SimCity's wonderful moments may be able to overtake the bad ones to create the best game in the series. But if those don't come, EA's bustling metropolis may end up a ghost town.

A bland and occasionally baffling return for the Vampire: The Masquerade series.

The high-def graphics feel like overkill, and the addition of Fooms - cutesy animations to "send" emotional outbursts to other players - don't make sense when you can chat freely with other players. At the end of the day, it's cards; no more, no less.

Coming from Don't Nod, it's a shame that both Aphelion's storytelling and climbing mechanics feels so lackluster, with Uncharted-like sci-fi action failing to make much of an impact at all. Some gorgeous alien vistas and a decent premise fail to interest for long when simply controlling characters feels clunky and uninteresting.

We applaud the focus, but the flip side of that is a narrower market and decreased value to those of us who don’t know which of the ladies is Anni-Frid Lyngstad and which is Agnetha Faltskog. Knock it down to $20 and we’ll talk.

The game is still playable, although not without its frustrations. And seriously, why bother giving us an accuracy percentage when aiming is nearly impossible. That's like yelling at an arthritic waiter for spilling your soup. But the wonderful presentation COD fans have come to expect is intact, and the game visually translates unimpeded.

Micro Machines v4 doesn't stray one bit from its own gene pool and certainly doesn't impress on any level other than mindless, guilty arcade racing, but sometimes that's vastly preferable to all the stat-heavy, mod-crazy options out there.

We’ve rarely been so conflicted about a baseball game, but MLB 2K9 is a paradox. It’s undeniably fun and accessible, offering plenty of addictive options for hardball fans. It also suffers from too many gaffes that are impossible to ignore.

Devoted fans to the Disgaea franchise will feel oddly at home with the game's unpredictable dialogue, overly crazy plot and familiar line-up of characters - many of whom make an appearance in this virtual action novel - but if you're not invested in game's history or its characters, this title is passable at best.

Batman: The Telltale Series squanders its potential with a messy story obsessed with retreading older Batman tales.

Warframe brings solid gunplay and a rich infrastructure to the PlayStation 4 in a rare free-to-play model. It's a missed opportunity on some levels, but if you're itching to get more use out of your new console, give it a whirl.

Phantasy Star Universe, in the end, is just more of the same thing: simple dungeon crawling. It's fun online; it's not fun offline. This is a hard one to rate, as it's pretty convoluted. It ultimately depends on what type of experience you're looking for when you load it up.

Ultimately, this game is a true celebration of all things Ghostbusters, and fans shouldn't wait to get this if the PlayStation 2 is all they have. For those with little love for the series, it's still a good action game, even if the no-frills levels and abbreviated campaign are bound to leave you feeling like you're sitting at the kids' table while the adults feast.

A series of well-done flying sequences bridge the game's various stages, and the shifting of gears is very much welcome after an extended series of brawls.

Essentially, the game is an underwhelming experience that, unlike the film, is ultimately forgettable.

Full Frontal Assault isn't as much of an evolution of the series as it is a fun experiment with its mechanics. Unless the support is there for more maps down the road, it might not be in your regular rotation for more than a few weeks or so. Still, it's a pretty good bang for your buck whether you're a longtime fan or not.

As a third-person zombie action game, it's awkward and clumsy, and therefore, a difficult recommendation for gamers looking for a post-Dead Rising quick fix.

Forspoken shines brightest when its protagonist is dipping, ducking, and diving along the generally striking world of Athia while casting a variety of spells, but the standard fish-out-of-water fantasy story of Frey only subtracts from the experience.

Darksiders 3 feels like coming home for fans, and combat is a blast - but it can be hard to appreciate the good when dealing with a laundry list of technical stumbles.

It just feels sloppier than the PSP game, which, incidentally, will run you ten more bucks and doesn't support game sharing.

We're hoping people do discover what a gem Nail'd is, because with a bustling online community the multiplayer could become addictive despite the game setup issues. Even so, the game is a wonderfully unique racer that really stands out even based solely on its single-player component.

Killer Is Dead successfully separates itself from the pack, but it doesn’t live up to all its potential. It ends too soon, is padded with reused areas, and suffers from tech problems that should be defunct.

It's also not like there are many JPRG options on Wii right now, so if you're really eager to play a traditional, if uninspired, RPG on Wii, Arc Rise definitely offers a respectable 40-ish hour experience – just don't expect it to throw you any curve balls.

Your characters will not do what you want them to a decent portion of the time.

Well animated sprites, catchy music, challenging bosses and enough abilities to keep the admittedly monotonous action from grating on your soul.

RaiderZ may not be able to go head-to-head against some of the bigger free-to-play MMOs on the market, but it does offer a fairly unique monster-hunter experience and fast-paced action combat that will keep you hooked for hours on end.

Even though it has its flaws, The Adventures of Tintin never veers from decent to awful, and Ubisoft Montpelier deserves credit for creating a rare wonder - a movie-spinoff that doesn't completely suck.

While The Life remains an eminently pleasant diversion, it’s not enough to vault 09 past its rivals. It’s definitely worth a rental by PS3-owning basketball fans, but NBA 09 The Inside needs more time in training camp before it deserves a spot on the court with Live and 2K9.

While its story, characters and conversations are interesting and fun to play around with, Alpha's third-person shooting – which makes up the bulk of the game – is not. It's a far cry from terrible, but we'd been led to expect much more.

The beautiful landscapes of India and a promising sense of movement aren't enough to save Chronicles India from hamstrung combat and tedious stealth. Close, but missed the ledge.

In a vacuum, it's not too shabby, but when compared to its competition this season, it's the red-headed stepchild in a crowded room.

While we would've loved a smoother and more expansive experience, what is here is great for the casuals and tolerable for the hardcore. Let's hope it's the start of bigger things to come.

The bottom line is that NBA Live 07 is a pretty darned good hoops sim - once you adjust the wonky default sliders. Without it, the shooting doesn't give an inch, no matter how well you time your release.

A decent little button masher. It also does a far better job in presenting a coherent story compared to its home console brethren - a small bone, sure, but to the delight of fans, and it gives noobs a reason to keep playing.

Sniper Elite 3’s focus on marksmanship over direct confrontation is admirable, but its lack of polish or any real personality keep it from standing out.

There’s a lot to like about Assassin’s Creed on PSP, provided you’re tolerant of its heavy flaws, and we love that you can connect it to your PS3 and unlock new weapons in Assassin’s Creed 2 – we just wish the developers had looked more to the future rather than the past when creating it.

With insanely repetitive, mindless action and completely unengaging character progression, Bounty Hounds withers and dies within its first hour.

It takes all of 10 seconds to understand but countless hours to perfect. Is there a better recipe for a portable game?

While Power of Illusion doesn't quite live up to the Genesis classic it references, it proves to be another solid addition to the 3DS's library. The main quest is a fun romp through beautiful, Disney-inspired stages, marred only by its short length and a few underutilized gameplay ideas.

MLB 2K8 is more of an obligatory title than a passionately crafted offering, and it feels like it most of the time.

It's just puzzling that, with so many internet poker rooms to use for inspiration, many of Texas Hold 'em's elements - play speed, AI, graphics - feel cobbled together and bargain bin.

Despite the enjoyment of slinging bad guys around like giant wrecking balls, Triggerheart's indecisive difficulty, average looks and short length render it a bad choice for any but the most devoted shooter fans.

For the right buyer, this is a gleaming golden treasure even with bits of tarnish here and there.