Unfortunately, most of the kind words I have for Bayonetta are reserved for the Xbox 360 version, as the PlayStation 3 version suffers from crippling performance issues. Load times are bad, even popping up when you're simply cycling through options on your inventory menus, but what really kills it is the way the game stutters and chops through the action, dropping frames and bogging down at an almost constant rate.

Metro 2033 is best for experienced gamers already familiar with the trappings of the modern shooter who are OK with playing a roughly made game that still manages to deliver a unique experience.

The whole thing feels like a "B Team" sort of feel to it, but there's just enough Uncharted here to ensure that the experience isn't a total loss.

While it's an uneven experience, the action works well enough and the game's sense of humor hits often enough to make it come together pretty well. Unfortunately, it also gets a bit monotonous, largely due to some repetitive quest design.

There's just enough exposition there to keep things moving and just enough of a gameplay tweak to make you wish they had made these changes two games ago. It's a fun but feature-light shooter for people who already enjoy the basic style of Gears of War. Nothing more, nothing less.

The gravity-shifting gameplay offered might be complete enough for game-starved Vita owners on the hunt for something to do with their device. But do manage your expectations, lest you be disappointed by how hollow Gravity Rush is underneath its breathtaking shell. This is a game that does one thing very well. If you need more than that, then Gravity Rush isn't for you.

I'm a sucker for a good mob story, but Mafia II's is merely decent.

As a game following in the footsteps of the Galaga legacy, Legions doesn't do a very good job. Other than the ability for ships to capture other ships, nothing about this game feels much like the original game.

Band Hero is a product that feels like a commodity, something assembled by a marketing team concerned only with the market demands currently not met by the existing Guitar Hero brand. But that cold, calculated feeling doesn't make it a bad game.

I'm a sucker for a good mob story, but Mafia II's is merely decent.

It's certainly mechanically sound, but you should probably attempt to find it at a slight discount.

This should have been a superior sequel, but there's not enough here to make it anything than a mildly enjoyable but ultimately underwhelming action game.

I'm a sucker for a good mob story, but Mafia II's is merely decent.

With most of the additions aimed at streamlining elements of the first game or, at least, making them less of a pain to deal with, Crackdown 2 occasionally feels like a big patch for the first game.

BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger is probably a game best suited for people who have been playing fighting games for a long time, but even then, its style seems to be deliberately divisive. It's certainly worth trying out if you're a fan of the genre, but it's entirely possible that you'll find the whole thing to be a big, loud mess.

Scribblenauts is a great proof-of-concept that struggles under the weight of its own ambition and the expectations that resulted from its uniquely exciting premise.

If you look past the tricky visuals, something that's admittedly pretty hard to do, you'll see a game that's operating on a lot of borrowed charm.

Still, this is the first year where I feel like I can actually recommend a WWE game in earnest. Granted, it's a caveat-laden recommendation, but a recommendation nonetheless. Considering how long it's been since one of these games actually felt playable, let alone enjoyably so, it's almost worth putting up with the various peculiarities and more antiquated elements just so you can actually have fun wrestling again.

The little mushroom man finally gets his name on the marquee, and the result is a charming, unique, and puzzle-heavy adventure.

Blood Stone isn't bad, but literally every single thing you can find here has been done better elsewhere.

It's just the rough trimming around the edges, the ways that those grand elements could have been better realized and better conveyed to the player, that make this as frustrating a game as it is lovable.

For as many times as I had to replay certain stages, Wario Land: Shake It! felt kind of brief, though there were aspects that managed to wear out their welcome before it was over. Still, a 2D game with this kind of detail is enough of an anomaly that it can be enjoyable for that alone, and despite some structural issues, it shakes up the usual platformer formula enough to be interesting.

The whole thing is just so gosh darn British, too, which I imagine is less of a selling point if you are British. That pervasive sprinkling of refined, humorous nonsense makes The Journey feel a little more like one worth taking, even when some of its nuts and bolts are less appealing.

That's the fundamental issue with shoehorning a big, console-style game like Resident Evil into a form factor the size of the 3DS. You just can't get a game that plays as well or makes as big a visual impact as it would on a big TV, and if you start bolting peripherals onto the system to alleviate those problems, you start to negate what makes the system elegant in the first place.

The story in Spec Ops: The Line isn't amazing, but the way that it's told really stands out and, in many ways, saves the entire project from being a complete waste of time. But that doesn't make it easy to recommend.

I'm still glad I saw the Dead Space trilogy through to the end--and if you're invested in the series it's absolutely worth playing--but it's too bad this respectable series, which felt so exciting and fresh when it debuted just a few years ago, had to go out on a middling note.

This final chapter in the trilogy certainly gives you your money's worth in necromorphs waiting to be dismembered, but the overall quality of the game just doesn't feel equal to the high standard set by its excellent predecessors.

Its mechanics are sound but its design uninspired, failing to do any one thing better than the standout entries in the genre. And the few unique tricks it does have, its predecessor did better. After Guerrilla made such a resounding impact, it's a shame that the best you can say about this latest Red Faction is that it's just OK.