There are a ton of fine shooters hitting shelves this year that are good enough to go down in history. It would be a shame to waste your money paying full price for this heap, which instead takes history down with it.

Generally a polished and highly playable rhythm title that delivers in spades when it comes to play modes and options. We just can't help but feel like that titular revolutionary spark has faded in recent iterations.

Though largely inoffensive in its sloppiness, Alvin and the Chipmunks amounts to a forgettable budget title priced like a premium release this holiday season - as if you needed another reason to abstain from it.

Though largely inoffensive in its sloppiness, Alvin and the Chipmunks amounts to a forgettable budget title priced like a premium release this holiday season - as if you needed another reason to abstain from it.

Left Brain Right Brain might be an interesting concept, but it fails to be an interesting game. Sure, it’s only $20, but that money could be better spent on a far more interesting and enjoyable collection of minigames.

Any fun you may have teaching Rover to pluck wounded waterfowl out of the water and onto the grill will end fast once you’ve mastered duck calls, shooting, and retrieving. And that won’t take long at all.

It still looks great on the hardware and accurately represents the popular anime/manga series, but the statute of limitations for similar last-gen sequels expires now - it's time for Atari to take this franchise to next-gen consoles and put some real force behind these extraordinary characters and settings.

The sophomoric idiocy isn't for everyone, but for what it is and what it costs, PAIN is hands-down one of the best things ever to hit the PS3.

They’ll likely stir some major nostalgia for a lot of older gamers out there that remember when arcade games were fixtures in bars and pool halls - back when the cabinets came complete with ashtrays and drink holders. But they haven’t stood the test of time as well as some other bona fide arcade classics.

There’s a lot more replay value to be found in here, and unlike the forgotten titles that have collected dust since you beat them, Geometry Wars: Galaxies is the sort of game that you’ll want to dive back into for another round (or ten) long after your first encounter.

Games this low-rent and unapologetically busted only come around a few times a year, but don't bother savoring this rare experience - Cruis'n is undoubtedly the worst Wii racer to date, and another blight on a franchise that has long suffered in home conversions.

With an eye toward putting on some beer goggles to make the game better, we turned to the bottle. Ping Cup has the potential to be a decent drinking game but, again, the controls were mixed.

Boogie isn't a bad concept - there's just nothing to it, and that's not a very positive sentiment.

If you've got the time and patience to prep, and an audience willing to go along for the ride, Master of Illusion could turn you and your DS into the hit of the holiday party.

It's the deceptive simplicity of Undertow that makes it compelling - that and the easy-to-learn rules and controls.

When we finished Mass Effect the first time, the very next thing we did was start it all over again. It's clear that this is the beginning of a fantastic franchise, and we're already salivating over the possibilities for "Mass Effect II."

If you're looking for some mindless monster mashing stick with the versus fight-focused PS2 or Wii versions or, better yet, revisit the arcade classic Rampage.

The experience is well worth its $170 asking price (for a guitar/drum/mic/game bundle, which is the only way you’ll be able to buy Rock Band for months anyway) and makes for one of the most rewarding co-op events you could ask for. This is the perfectly polished, logical extension of what Guitar Hero started and where the music genre needed to go. It just rocks.

The experience is well worth its $170 asking price (for a guitar/drum/mic/game bundle, which is the only way you’ll be able to buy Rock Band for months anyway) and makes for one of the most rewarding co-op events you could ask for. This is the perfectly polished, logical extension of what Guitar Hero started and where the music genre needed to go. It just rocks.

There’s a fun little onling game here; and while it’s not quite as deep or engrossing as other titles on the market, it’s still a blast to create a character, dress them up and kill a lot of stuff in a group with other people.

Soulcalibur Legends does offer some solid hack-'n-slash gaming that'll also make for a nice Wii tech demo to show your non-gaming friends and family over the holidays. But in the end, the title's appeal will likely expire before that half-drunk carton of egg nog sitting in your fridge.

With all the new bells and whistles, there's no way that fans of Retro Evolved could go wrong with this one. But even strangers to the series should give Geometry Wars: Galaxies a shot as they'd be hard pressed to find a more satisfying 2D shooter out there.

But with its new fangled attempt at first-person shootage - accompanied with awful zooming, crouching and strafing - makes TC4 a technical failure in addition to being exquisitely ugly.

It's not the breakthrough of medicine and motion controls it was last year, but Trauma Center: New Blood greatly improves on one of the Wii's best showcases.

We liked the setting, liked the gameplay but ultimately there wasn't enough to keep it in our console for a very long time.

We might be able to forgive the game its sin of unoriginality and consumer whoring, but we can’t forgive them for taking the fun out of shaving a sheep. Tacked-on, twitchy controls; lousy graphics and all-round dull gameplay fraught with mindless minigames tank any hope a would-be virtual farmer might have of actually having fun on a farm.

But unless you routinely wear your Federation uniform in public, you're probably not rabid enough to get your money's worth from this one.

Unless you routinely wear your Federation uniform in public, you're probably not rabid enough to get your money's worth from this one.