Halo 3 ODST offers up everything you'd expect from a Halo game. Fast paced action, a decent story, and a great multiplayer experience.

I personally found Resident Evil 5 to be a great addition to a beloved franchise that has been going on for nearly fifteen years, even if it doesn’t represent the series’ finest hour.

Overall, NFS Shift provides an entertaining experience with a decent variety of tracks, locations, and vehicles.

Anniversary is a great game that stops just short of excellence due to a few nagging issues.

However, the game is enjoyable overall, though really only a ‘must have’ for those who can score a million points with their eyes closed and one hand tied behind their back.

Accepting Borderlands on its own terms is key to enjoying the experience. It may be a late comer but this is definitely one of the better games released in 2009.

Enter Bleach: The Blade of Fate. The game delivers great gameplay and superb graphics with plenty of single player game modes like arcade, versus, and challenge.

The variety of achievements will also keep you entertained for a long while. A solid, fun and wholly addictive game that should be purchased on its merits alone.

The visuals are very well done and the sound is simply incredible, especially with the score it has.

In the end UFC is definitely a worthy investment for those that have the patience, and time, to learn how to play the game as it’s intended to be played.

If it weren’t for the bloated playtime and weak set of characters, JC2 would have reached its full potential and become a true franchise title.

Masterfully crafted, Darksiders is clearly a work of passion, and though it borrows a lot of elements from other games, they come together in such a way that will keep you entertained from start to finish.

A co-op mode would have been wonderful, a more fleshed out story-line, additional levels that didn’t take place in dark corridors that herded you from A to B without fail, more multiplayer options; these are all things that should be expected of games being released on next-generation consoles.

Masterfully crafted, Darksiders is clearly a work of passion, and though it borrows a lot of elements from other games, they come together in such a way that will keep you entertained from start to finish.

You can see everything that the game has to offer in one solid evening of gaming, which makes a full price tag hard to swallow. However, Smooth Moves is one of the best rentals that you could make for your next party.

A bit of an odd duck. It combines the new, successful multiplayer system of Modern Warfare with the old, familiar setting of World War II. Though WWII games are a dime a dozen, Call of Duty is still at the top for a reason. The campaign is varied and exciting, and can be played with up to three friends.

Torchlight doesn't really do anything new, per se. It's taken the dungeon-crawling genre and refined it to its best elements.

Race 07 certainly does appeal to the enthusiasts of the serious racing genre, but does a lot to make the game playable by those who aren’t quite familiar with the proper procedure to take a turn without spinning wildly out of control.

Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword is simply a fun game to play.

Ninja Gaiden presents a decent package that will entertain you for brief periods of time if hack and slash button mashers are your type of game.

Contra 4 is meant for the hardcore old school crowd, and only for the hardcore old school crowd.

Rhythm Heaven is one of those rare portable games that is so addictive it makes you wish you had a longer commute to work.

Stacking is a fantastic game with some actual content, challenge (so long as you avoid the hint system) and it has a whole lot of charm.

While it doesn't bring any major innovation to the franchise, Guitar Hero 3 is a solid successor and an excellent first outing of the franchise by Neversoft.

Despite a five year gestation period and some unfortunate gameplay flaws, Alan Wake remains a powerhouse of interactive storytelling and sometimes unbearable tension.

It would have been a fantastic film, but as an interactive experience, it isn’t ready for the main stage. The tragic thing is that with some fine tuning and more mid-game jokes it could have been great.

In the end, Marvel Ultimate Alliance is really a better version of the X-Men Legends game with better graphics, a longer story, bigger levels, more powers, more unlockables, more characters and an even better co-op mode. Unfortunately, this is also a game that you may have already played twice before.

If you’re looking for a deep strategy title, then Europa Universalis III is likely for you. With its improved interface and tutorials, it’s possible to lose at least a few hours in the game even if you’re not an enthusiast of the genre.