The ridiculous stereotypes, somewhat offensive writing, and ho-hum gameplay all manage to come together to be something worth playing.

You can wrap up the story in about 6 hours. There are 12 costumes to try on and 27 cards to collect. Whether you can handle the grind or not Costume Quest 2 is a shallow game. It’s also a celebration of this sacred holiday that you may find yourself replaying next year. If there’s still time before the sun rises on November 1st, you may not regret buying this game.

Sonic Rivals runs a fairly solid race, but it’s running in circles around a limited amount of content.

Despite successfully improving on some of its predecessor's mechanics, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 is ultimately bogged down by untimely bugs. If you can work through these issues, there's a decent action RPG hiding behind the mask. It might just be too much to ask of the average player.

Wanted: Weapons of Fate strikes one more blow against the curse of the bad licensed game, but despite unique elements and enjoyable gameplay, it doesn't quite have the polish and longevity to compete with other big-name shooters on the market.

Lasting about three hours, this $10 first act has a hard time standing on its own.

While X-Men Origins: Wolverine is clearly undercooked, it's still genuinely fun, and most importantly, it delivers the kind of visceral, untamed experience that fans expect from the character. It's been a long time coming. Just like Logan, it's a beast on the outside, but it has a good heart within.

Your enjoyment of Eye of the North will depend largely on your own personal desire to collect trinkets and doo-dads while following a reasonably interesting story.

The story is interesting and fairly epic, but told in such large chunks at a time, that sometimes the pacing is thrown off.

The best rhythm games successfully tie gameplay and music in such a way that players feel like they're part of the song. Rock Band Blitz doesn't quite bridge that gap.

The Adventures of Kai and Zero lacks the innovation of the original Elebits, but the obstacle-laden gameplay is engaging throughout and there are some fun boss battles for players to look forward to as well. It’s not the brightest adventure on the DS, but it does have enough juice to provide some kid-friendly enjoyment.

The atmosphere needs some work; and the game is far from a simulation in terms of realism and depth. Yet NBA 09 can still become addictive for those who want a fast-paced, accessible hoops game.

Need for Speed Nitro's cartoony nature and zoned-off tracks take some of the edge out of street racing, but the fiery boosts and hectic police encounters make for a fast, simple arcade racer.

It’s been three years since the previous Animal Crossing on the DS, but City Folk is virtually identical and costs $20 more.

An over-reliance on random chance over strategy can quickly derail the experience when things go awry at the worst possible time, but when matches come together with the right balance, Mario Party 9 does deliver the fun this exuberant series is known for.

Where the original was intriguing for its gratuitously unhinged take on sandbox-enabled chaos, Prototype 2 feels like it's just going through the motions. The series badly needs an injection of creativity if it's to merit another installment.

The Bourne Conspiracy walks the line between pander and cater, giving an accessible roller coaster ride to anyone with rudimentary hand-eye coordination. It's a nice mix of gameplay styles that allows you to play it however you want, but all the niggling issues eventually pile up.

Pandora's Tower isn't the best-playing action RPG out there. Its fixed camera and control issues are often quite frustrating. Yet these issues aren't enough to completely outweigh Elena's convincing character.

Lasting just a couple hours and adding nothing to Metro's world or story, there's little value in Last Light's Faction Pack. Thankfully, at only $5, the ranger mission is worthwhile for players itching for just a bit more time behind the gas mask.

The hack 'n slash category isn't exactly thriving on consoles these days, so if you've been hard up for a cooperative loot bonanza, War in the North is worth sinking a weekend into. Its lack of variety and polish, however, makes it hard to imagine it having any sort of longevity.

Even with its faults, we’ve enjoyed much of our time with Assassin’s Creed Rogue. Exploring the wilds and icy seas is still fun for a while, and facing off against hidden assassins has its moments. Overall though, Rogue is left feeling stretched thin, held together by the threads connecting it to other games in the franchise.

The infrastructure stands and the game is fun, which is most important. But the additions can grate, and most of the minigames strike out, though multiplayer anything that requires people to make foolish gestures has some merit.

The impressively eerie environments provide a convincing backdrop to the tale, and a few good scares and unsettling revelations mean that Machine for Pigs can still grind at your mind.

Costume Quest is a bit shallow and repetitive, but if you're looking to get into the Halloween spirit with a bizarre sense of humor, it's not a bad pick for 15 dollars.

Escape Plan’s memorable puzzles are wrapped up in a unique presentation, but once you finish the 3 hour campaign there's not much of a reason to comeback.

The Bourne Conspiracy walks the line between pander and cater, giving an accessible roller coaster ride to anyone with rudimentary hand-eye coordination. It's a nice mix of gameplay styles that allows you to play it however you want, but all the niggling issues eventually pile up.

Halo’s track record has been impeccable up to this point, but its first outing on the PC comes off as little more than a ploy to get users to upgrade to Vista.

With its terrain-deforming mechanics and physics-based weaponry, Fracture features some creative gameplay ideas and can be a lot of fun, but unfortunately that creativity isn’t matched in the art direction, story, or enemy AI.