It's this severe push for gamers to be determined and persistent enough to explore every nook and cranny in Dead Rising that makes it either a splendid, geeky Pandora's Box full of unrelenting challenge and rewards or controller-smashingly difficult because of its hardcore mentality.

Not only has the game been retooled with the Live audience in mind, but it's still a challenging, rewarding way to pound out your frustrations after a brutal day in the real world.

Don’t be turned off by the difficult controls right away. Once you get used to the steering and can take the corners, FlatOut 2 is an awesome racer with enough destruction and mayhem to last you awhile.

Once you get used to the steering and can take the corners, FlatOut 2 is an awesome racer with enough destruction and mayhem to last you awhile. And if you do get frustrated, the game provides plenty of ways to relieve stress - like launching your helpless driver into really hard objects.

With the failure of its flagship story mode, Super Monkey Ball Adventure becomes a rather dull product that has little reason to exist.

An easy, mildly entertaining grab bag of minigames and missions. Young kids will still undoubtedly enjoy the game, and their parents will find themselves sucked into numerous minigames as well.

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

This is a racing game that's not fun. It's basic, tasteless, and doesn't use any creativity with its cool cars it's focusing on in the game.

For now, local wireless matches will have to suffice. But with only one relevant complaint, and a staggering list of positives, Dark Resurrection rules the portable fighting ring with an iron fist.

Even when things get repetitive, there's something undeniably awesome about waging war on a grand scale. Warlords may not be the most multifaceted expansion pack ever made, but it is an exceedingly addictive one that adds new content and a new style of play to Civ IV.

While it's not nearly as deep as you'd expect for a game with the Firaxis seal of approval on it in terms of features or gameplay, CivCity Rome manages to provide a significant level of entertainment, despite its obvious and glaring faults.

The Ant Bully isn't wholly shameless about setting the bar low, and kids are bound to get at least a little joy from its small world, but this colony is just too repetitive and dull to be fun for long.

You know the drill: games based on movies tend to bite.

An incomparably innovative combination of hilarity and diabolical puzzles, Cloning Clyde is also a total bargain at 800 Microsoft points ($5).

To its credit, WarPath does contain some of the cheesiest weapon and vehicle names this side of an '80's Dolph Lundgren flick - we're guessing this is the only game where you’ll arm yourself with the Tyrant, Judge, Violator or Wolverine before driving off in your Maverick, Hornet or Razorback.

It's hard not to be frustrated by the poor visibility and abrupt, inconclusive ending (we suspect this is a prequel to the movie), but this still manages to emerge as one of the PSP's better shooters.

It's clear that nobody has plans to create a full-fledged RPG on the scale of any of the PSone or PS2 classics for the PSP, so a port is going to have to do. This game stands nobly above anything else you can buy on the system.

We could still do with more Campus Legend mode and fewer ho-hum drills, but this is nonetheless an excellent sports game, with all the thrills and dynamics of real college football.

The Xbox 360 version is nothing like the PS2 and Xbox versions. Instead of Campus Legend mode, where you can take some hapless youth through his illustrious college career (hiring tutors to teach him math), you get amazingly realistic graphics.

Two-player Wi-Fi games are fun, but there's no true online play or career mode. So while you do get all the stats and most of the gameplay, there's none of the pizzazz of the consoles. It's a compromise, but it works.

Spend a couple of hours coping with the plodding narrative and oppressive gameplay and you'll swear off RPGs for life.

Once you've unlocked Mecha Frieza and have maxed out the skills of your favorite characters, the single-player modes are pure tedium.

Unfortunately, the entire look of the game is marred by choppy graphics.

Despite its repetitiveness and the unfortunate lack of multiplayer modes, Monster House is good game that's perfect for some violence on the run.

It's not complicated, but Frogger holds some serious reminiscence value for those old enough to remember the ancient quarter-muncher even if it doesn't maintain quite the addictiveness of newer casual games like "Zuma" or "Feeding Frenzy."

It could have been much better if only there were more than two modes (deathmatch and team deathmatch) and a couple of maps small enough to play with less than five players, but Prey is still a major blast for shooter fans with strong stomachs.

This game is predominantly about next generation tank combat, which may strike some people as terribly boring, but for those just itching to join the new era of steel-clad, explosive-hurling champions, Chromehounds delivers the most satisfyingly complete experience available to date.

It could have been much better if only there were more than two modes (deathmatch and team deathmatch) and a couple of maps small enough to play with less than five players, but Prey is still a major blast for shooter fans with strong stomachs.