Featuring over 300 quests in total and a plethora of things to collect, monsters to defeat, and lands to explore, Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate is a meaty title worth sinking your teeth into. Its high learning curve may dissuade some players inexperienced with the series, but with enough patience and resourcefulness, you’ll be able to get through any problem and feel proud that you accomplished it. If you’re looking for a great reason to bring out your Wii U and play and online RPG with friends, look no further.

Little gameplay innovation.

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.

Battlefield 2042 is a strong foundation for future expansion. DICE's multiplayer-only FPS has scale and spectacle, but there are elements in need of careful refinement and optimization.

A Call of Duty title that reigns everything in and is afraid to try something new, Black Ops Cold War gets the basics spot on but doesn't have enough content to warrant the price tag.

But it’s short on new ideas, with a fundamental template that hasn’t changed in the last five years. And in this brave, new, post-Arkham Asylum world, we need a little more than that to be really awed.

An enjoyable side-scrolling adventure that's elevated by its stylistic visuals and unsettling atmosphere. Fans of classic platformers like Castlevania or Ghosts n' Goblins will definitely enjoy the old-school gameplay, while everyone else will revel in the papercraft setting and dark humor that frames it.

You can’t go wrong in picking up the 3DS version, as it’s an impressive example of how much content and depth can go into one little 3DS cartridge.

If you can justify the entry fee, this Puzzle & Dragons two-pack offers a solid hybrid of enjoyable puzzle mechanics and RPG-lite monster collecting.

Crystal Defenders doesn’t do much that’s new or revolutionary, but with very slim tower defense competition on the 360, it’s an addictive distraction.

Madden 18 shines brightest with its new Longshot mode, but the lack of improvements elsewhere makes this year’s Madden offering an incremental – but still highly-playable – update.

A mixed package: a competent but bland single-player campaign, plus a considerably better co-op campaign, along with some creatively fantastic multiplayer modes. If you're easily scared by horror movie clichés you might get scared by the attempts at creepiness, but we didn't find it scary at all.

It would be nice to see a season mode as robust as the most recent PS2 version of MotoGP, but as portable games go, what's offered here is sufficient for decent racing action on the go.

Players who have grown up with the likes of "Final Fantasy," however, will be unimpressed with Etrian Odyssey.

Ratatouille’s defied our expectations by dishing out a solid adventure with loads of extras and minigames. If the missions felt a little less repetitive, then we’d really have film-tie in greatness here. Either way, this is one game adaptation that’s easy to swallow.

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.

A mixed package: a competent but bland single-player campaign, plus a considerably better co-op campaign, along with some creatively fantastic multiplayer modes. If you're easily scared by horror movie clichés you might get scared by the attempts at creepiness, but we didn't find it scary at all.

When it hits its stride, Shadows of Doubt feels like it might be one of the greatest detective games of the 21st century, but it's hampered by outrageous bugginess and vestigial mechanics. The core is rock solid, but it still feels several major updates away from reaching its final form.

If you can deal with its quirks, Caesar IV offers a stunning economic model that is sure to challenge even the best money managers while providing hours of play.

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.

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.

Sometimes Nintendogs + Cats can feel like homework, and other times it can be a sweet little distraction where you spend time with adorably well-realized puppies and accurately uninterested cats.

If you're of the appropriate level, there are plenty of riches to be found out in this Desert.

Regardless of how you choose to play it, Evil West feels like the best version of the AAA "B-tier game" that we don't see as often as we used to. It's not technically polished and I wouldn't call it innovative, but it's mechanically solid and comes equipped with a lot of fun ideas that mostly pan out. Sometimes you just need a game to punch out some bad guys; it can feel familiar and straightforward, just as long as the punching feels good. Evil West fills that specific, but very relatable need quite well.

Secret Saturdays is for the most part an enjoyable experience for fans of the show and preteens that need something to do on their DS. The rest of us might be better off with Pokemon and Bionic Commando elements in their pure forms, however.

Sometimes Nintendogs + Cats can feel like homework, and other times it can be a sweet little distraction where you spend time with adorably well-realized puppies and accurately uninterested cats.

It looks fantastic, and it's definitely sexy, albeit in an unabashedly slutty, so-tacky-you-should-probably-feel-ashamed kind of way. If that sounds cool, take this babe out on the town tonight.

There's still plenty of fun inside the good ship, especially in the excellent home base where unlockables are abundant, but the LEGO series seems to be losing its new toy shine. Pirates has its moments, but we're ready to set sail in a new direction.