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.