This Spider-man isn't that amazing, but he saves the day anyway. His adventure goes the distance with enough ingenuity sprinkled into the sustained action to distract more often than he disappoints. Even with the kindergarten controls, you'll want to see the story to its conclusion.

MySims lacks some polish and depth, but the sheer amount of customization will definitely busy any would-be virtual impresario looking for a town to call their own.

Shadowgate is a formidable if sometimes frustrating return to classic adventure gameplay. If you’re a fan of the original or undaunted by Shadowgate’s unforgiving depths, it’s worth grabbing a torch and venturing inside.

It's significantly more playable than previous efforts, and the developers have created a more enjoyable game as a result. It's far from perfect, however. The new play modes are nice but hardly groundbreaking, and the tempo meter doesn't make any sense.

It’s clear that some effort certainly went into this dastardly devil’s creation, but Vergil’s Downfall leaves us wanting more; the inability to play as Vergil in the main campaign, much less the recently released Bloody Palace mode, is a puzzling omission given the precedent set with Devil May Cry 3.

A step in the wrong direction for the series. Tension and atmosphere take a back seat to cheap, impotent scares and tedious combat encounters.

It's not necessarily a bad game, it's just far too difficult to enjoy.

The game offers dozens of moments that you just can't get anywhere else, and there's simply nothing like shooting a bug out of the sky with a giant laser. It's pretty great that in 2014 you can drop $40 and waste an entire weekend killing things straight out of a low-budget sci-fi movie.

Of the three games in the Overlord family, Dark Legend is something of a black sheep. It's smaller in scope and lacks some fundamental parts of the formula, but in its pursuit to be different, it's managed to one-up its cousins in certain key ways. The series' minion-control mechanics are a shoe-in on the Wii, and as an Overlord game, it succeeds at what it aims to deliver: mindless fun with irresistible charm.

If anything, Orcs and Elves will remind you of the old school classic PC RPGs like Lands of Lore and Eye of the Beholder--which is to say that there’s not a lot of originality here. But given the restrictions, id’s first DS game is a success.

Despite a few different fighting styles, matches tend to play exactly the same way no matter what environment you’re in or who’s doing the fighting. It’s like an album where every song sounds the same.

MySims Racing is a perfectly adequate kart racer that plays it far too safe in a genre that is associated with thrills and spills. While the car customization is a positive step forward, the courses, power-ups, and play modes don't do anything substantially new or exciting.

Despite failing to live up to some of its bold promises, Brink lands on its feet with an enjoyable class-based shooter that most anyone with a true taste for teamwork will take to. You may find a few hurdles to jump over, but if you're looking for a solid and fun team experience that isn't Team Fortress 2 on the consoles, you could do worse than Brink.

Lost Planet 2 has many missions, modes, and battles to experience, but it's not accessible without some effort. You'll definitely need to enlist a few allies in order to properly take advantage of the game's co-op-focused structure. It's a poor choice for anyone without the means to party up.

Though the battle system is improved, an erratic difficulty, budget production values, and a poorly-paced story keep Dawn of the New World from royalty status. In some ways, it’s a worthy successor to the original, but it’s ultimately just another passable action RPG.

G-Force isn't likely to attract many fans over age 13, but parents shouldn't regret picking this one up for their kids. It can get a little repetitive, but it's fun to blow apart household appliances, or watch a guinea pig rocket across the floor.

The mission objectives are mundane, but all the little secrets littered throughout give it a sense of discover that Harry Potter games have failed to deliver in the past. If you’re a diehard Potter fan then don’t think twice about picking it up, and action gamers will find a lot to like as well.

An accessible co-op dungeon crawler that's at its best with a group of friends. It may be on the shorter side, but while it lasts it's an unpredictable and memorable experience.

What stand out the most H.A.W.X. 2 are the annoyances and spin-cycles of flight combat. The dogfighting neither feels particularly realistic nor particularly fun, and as a result, the most enjoyable missions are the ones that avoid air to air conflict.

The vicious combat is a lot of fun, and building your army and laying siege to the enemy is a compelling experience in an action game setting. If it didn’t run out of ideas so quickly and had a smoother presentation, Viking could have struck an even mightier blow.

Another year, another NASCAR. The sparse updates and thin lacquer are well done, but like their preceding adjectives: meager.

Director George Lucas famously said that a "special effect without a story is a pretty boring thing." A special effect without strong gameplay is also a boring thing, which is Lost in Shadow's greatest fault.

Test Drive Unlimited 2's flaws aren't bad enough to keep you from being sucked into the vast amount of single-player content. The problem is that it isn't designed to be a single player game, and the online features meant to be its biggest draw have been broken for far too long.

Major League Baseball 2K12 could desperately use a new engine and some more polish to smooth out the rough edges, as the batter-pitcher interface, commentary, and MLB Today mode are all solid. There are simply not enough changes or fixes to make it worth paying full price this year, though. It seems that each time this series appears to be heading towards home, it trips on third base and stumbles to the ground.

Wii Party excels when it comes to variety and accessibility. With a large number of engaging mini-games, and several stand out modes to choose from, you'll have plenty of fun with it, especially with a group of friends.

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.

It’s easy to like the simple-yet-challenging games, but as the days wear on, it starts to show its faults. It was a darling on the DS, but this sort of thinker’s gymnastics doesn’t work as well for burst play on the couch.

If you don’t have any friends to play with steer clear, but if you live with a group of buddies or have a lot of siblings it can become incredibly addictive.