Our only technical beef with the game is the occasionally spotty touch screen control. Some of the minigame commands aren't as responsive as they could be, leading to bad grades on dishes you know you're nailing. Other than that, everything here works great - just take your time and don't expect too much.

We were so ready to fall in love with 2K’s take on major league baseball again this year, but we just can’t get past the depressing drop in visual fidelity.

A few small tweaks, overlapping missions and a reduction of redundant verbosity and this could be as exciting and addictive as old school adventure games. It'd be destined for the bargain bin if wasn't already as hard to find in a store as objects are to find in the game.

Faces of War wins on several fronts with its attractive destructible environments and solid multiplayer options; unfortunately, it falls short of total victory with frustrating AI and extensive micro-management duties, especially in single-player.

Thanks to the strange combination of one diverting new mode with a slew of rehashed sporting events, Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games disappoints as much as it entertains.

This frantic game still delivers the twitch frenzy that gamers crave, and deserves its spot in your quick-fix collection.

Exceptional when it all works, but for the third year running launch-day gremlins prohibit an even greater score.

The new levels are just too unambitious and end up playing like Sonic's recent DS outings, only with polygonal visuals and 3D depth. That's still a worthy experience, but when Dreamcast's 12-years-old Emerald Coast blows its 3DS counterpart out of the water, there's something not quite right here.

Essentially a stew of can’t-miss features and less appetizing filler material. You already own it if you’re a Heroes diehard. It’s just too bad, for all Nival’s hard work and lovely animations, that its legs couldn’t be a little longer.

You can hack your way through nine holes in one bus ride, thanks to fast animations. And, let's face it, if you're a big-time golfer there are not many DS options. Just don't expect much strategy or finesse or beauty.

Transformers: Autobots and Decepticons are essentially one game split into two “campaigns” in a shameless grab for fans’ wallets. All of the fundamental game mechanics, including controls, combat, and mission structure, are exactly the same, and even the first few levels are near-mirrors of each other.

It’s all in good fun, though - like a high school reunion. Characters from Tales of Eternia, Tales of Destiny, and even Tales of the Abyss parade across screen constantly, and even if you’ve never played those games, the ensuing crossover comedy is interesting to say the least.

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.

This is one of those games you hate to love. It’s simple and pure fun, but the unforgiving computer and the strange effectiveness of occasionally losing your cool and just randomly hammering the screen everywhere cheapens it. Find a friend to pick it up as well (or arrange some DS download play) and have fun.

Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss is an ambitiously detailed Lovecraftian detective story that makes great use of its supernatural horror source material. Open-ended puzzles across each chapter challenge in all the right ways, giving you the tools to sort through the mountains of evidence. Sometimes overly fiddly, and with more than few technical issues, pondering can be replaced with bursts of annoyance, but this is more often than not a great chin-stroker.

But what’s the point of making your favorite team when they play like beginners?

But we couldn’t shake the “I’ve been here already” déjà vu. By the time you hit the halfway mark, you’ll be sick of spinning in circles.

Utterly charming with a fantastic set of design tools, but it'll make you crave the freedom of more traditional Animal Crossing games.

The Sinking City’s engrossing premise is ultimately betrayed by counterintuitive systems and bleak monotony.

The innovation and surprise goes no further than the dwarves, trolls and magic. As much fun as those elements add to the shooter genre, they're simply not enough to compensate for the absence of everything else.

Despite its flaws and frustrations, FFXI's age gives it one thing that no other 360 game can match: massive amounts of content. You could easily lose 200 hours of your life (not to mention your spouse) during the first month of exploration.

You'll enjoy it a lot while it lasts, but it's just a shame there isn't more Daffy here to love.

Even with the aid of the magnifying glass, the pacing of Tunguska's plot still crawls at a snail's pace.

The whole game only takes ten hours - tops - to finish, and honestly, that’s just long enough before the tedium begins to set in.

Lightfall is a deeply uneven experience that makes a terrible first impression. An excellent new subclass and raid can only carry it so far, especially when new and exacerbated issues run this deep.

Repetitive, formulaic, and downright strange, Biomutant suffers from an abundance of problems that get in the way of great ideas.

Samurai Champloo: Sidetracked does a lot that's interesting - for a little while, anyway - but we get the impression that this is the product of too much thought and not enough work.

Shot-for-shot this is the same game console players had in January - a fantastic, hard as hell shooter that'll knock your eyes out of your head. But with no new content at all and a lack of the ultra-cool bonus multiplayer maps, we've got to dock it a bit.