If you have no friends and no broadband connection then UT III will be a snore. When twitching out against opponents around the globe it can be as addictive, and deep, as video games come.

Gone Home's crisscrossing threads, like any good short story, are sure to have your mind racing as you try to unravel what's going on. This heavy sense of mystery is mixed with a dose of nostalgia that might have you head-banging.

It's rare for a visual direction to have such a profound impact on gameplay, but the two are seamlessly interwoven in Kirby's Epic Yarn. It's certainly not one of the more challenging platformers out there, but it's a breathtaking experience nonetheless.

Anyone feverishly clawing at their 360 for more Oblivion will venture forth through this new dimension with a smile on their face, but once you do the math, Shivering Isles is just as overpriced as Knights of the Nine and the downloads that came before it.

If you’re a strategy gamer who’s grown jaded, it’s the exact shot in the arm you need.

The latest Fight Night pushes hard to deliver a game that feels realistic and authentic to the sport while also being extremely playable, and offering plenty of staying power. Even if boxing as a sport barely piques your interest, this game delivers tension, drama, and punishment to rival the best fighting games out there.

If you're looking for an RPG that strays off the beaten path, go buy Valkyria Chronicles. From the gameplay to the visuals, it's one of a kind. It has appeal for both strategy heads and role-players who find high fantasy to be low on their interest scale.

The multiplayer is the real deal, and is destined to sit on the throne of data packets for the PS3 for the foreseeable future.

Boom Blox: Bash Party is well-done, accessible, and fun, but it just doesn’t feel like a completely new game. If you never tried the original, Bash Party would be a great place to start. It’s hard to imagine someone picking up the game for the first time and not having fun with it.

Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate is not only the best portable entry in the series, but quite possibly the best installment, period.

When it comes to voice work, though, you can't touch BioWare. The production is great, and astoundingly comprehensive.

After suffering from an oversaturation of Sims for the last 10 or so years, it’s hard to believe The Sims 3 is as good as it is. It’s unapologetically a Sims game, but it also manages to feel truly fresh.

Despite these moments of frustration, Fluidity surges past the usual fare of stagnant WiiWare games, sparkling with a steady stream of fresh gameplay mechanics.

It doesn’t redefine first-person genre, but it certainly threatens the status quo, and that’s a welcome step forward.

A few things about the new Tomb Raider come across as wasted effort. The story of Lara’s transformation is sabotaged by the gameplay, and is frankly a little dorky, with an after-school special style multi-ethnic cast filled by lame sterotypes like angry black woman and scrap-happy Scotsman. Likewise a multiplayer mode, which nobody familiar with Tomb Raider would expect or even think to ask for, is competent but utterly unremarkable.

It's not for players who demand immediate gratification from their games, but those who appreciate the simple pleasure of overcoming challenges within a team environment will find a lot to like. It's deep, customizable, and provides a lot of latitude for different play styles.

Lack of character progression aside, this is a substantial chunk of DLC, lasting 12 to 15 hours and including some great payoffs at the end. You’ll find tantalizing mysteries to explore along the way, and a few more side quests unlock after the main quest. Assault on Dragon Keep is the funniest and most expansive bit of post-launch content for Borderlands 2. Fantasy nerds, this one’s for you.

Fluid combat, well-designed levels, and boss battles that will remind you precisely why you love the series in the first place make Ready at Dawn's second entry in the series a God among portable games.

It's straightforward and often unforgiving, but at 1200 points, you'd be hard pressed to find as infectious a downloadable game as Trials HD. If you're looking for a DLC title with an easy hook and replayability to spare, this one has a lot of rubber to burn.

It’s disappointing that the motion controls are more a novelty than an effective way to play, but the personality, nostalgic nods, hidden goodies, and battle-tested, edge-of-your-seat gameplay demonstrate that some things never go out of style.

Series savants won’t be disappointed by the game’s catalog of well-constructed missions and stellar multiplayer experience, but players may still find themselves hoping for some sort of wild mutation from the franchise’s established norms.

It’s a sequel to one of the most entertaining Star Wars games ever made, and it honors one of the best sci-fi trilogies of all time. Unfortunately, some of the design limitations might keep you from playing each level multiple times to find all the goodies and online achievements.

The melancholy can swell at times to border at overbearing, and one or two real head scratchers would have been nice, but Brothers is a yarn that hopefully won’t be forgotten after fussy first looks.

It appears that the development team refuses to say amazing is good enough. The new Be a Legend option is disappointing while the also-new 24/7 mode shines. The graphics stay the course, but the staggering depth that pervades the entire experience puts yet another championship season on ice.

While in some ways little brother has finally come of age, it still has nagging immaturity issues at times. While there are no new modes, the tweaks to the existing ones are all for the better, and the new running controls are so precise and lifelike that we hope big brother Madden takes the hint.

Ninja Theory has done right by Devil May Cry, delivering a striking game that honors the series' essence while still feeling like the product of a distinct vision. If you can forgive a few excesses--like the pretty-but-toothless boss fights--you'll find that your old friend hasn't changed all that much on the inside, in spite of his new style.

A careful, confident treatment of a classic game that's had more influence than it's had time in the spotlight. If you're interested in the history or practice of fighting games, this is a great chance to pick up a fighter that's paid its dues and proved its worth.

The game's production values--from the artwork and voice acting, to the music and video sequences--are among the best in any handheld game to date.