Feels like some lost XBLA title from 2006, like it just wandered in from the cold after years adrift at sea, totally unaware of what's happened in the six years that transpired since. Its insubstantial puzzle mechanics and generally bare-bones presentation are the stuff of yesteryear, somehow transplanted into a time that's all but forgotten that games like it ever existed.

There are a few glimmers of what could have been in here, but this is not the game that legitimizes Kinect as a game-playing device, nor does it do a single thing to restore any vibrancy or value to the Star Wars license. Fans of Star Wars, Kinect hopefuls, and little kids all deserve better.

I'm comfortable in saying that South Park: Tenorman's Revenge is a gigantic middle-finger extended in the direction of anyone who might actually want to enjoy a game featuring the myriad memorable characters and storylines of South Park in video game form. And because of all of that, I'm completely comfortable declaring that you should stay the hell away from South Park: Tenorman's Revenge.

The game looks marvelous, and it's an impressive effort in this little-seen genre, but the gameplay is wrapped too rigidly around mechanics that feel a bit at odds with one another for me to feel good recommending it wholeheartedly.

It has a criminally low number of courses that have all appeared in previous Ridge Racer games, no interesting career structure whatsoever, a new car customizing feature that somehow manages to make the "machines" feel less unique, and a bunch of music that also appeared in the old games. You'd have to be extremely hard up for any form of ridge racing for this to add up to something worth purchasing.

Killing the combat system that made this franchise so enticing, and robbing it of any modicum of challenge was so far beyond what was necessary that it leaves Ninja Gaiden 3 feeling like little more than a stripped-down husk of its former glory. If the previous Ninja Gaiden games were like carefully built, brutally fast hot rods, Ninja Gaiden 3 feels like it should be up on bricks on somebody's lawn.

It's only at its peak when you're sitting next to another player, locally engaging in SFXT's brand of tag battles. Online, I found it to be a bit of a mess, and the game's attempts at meaningful character customization fall victim to layers and layers of slow-moving menus and a bundle of additional content that only serves to further confuse the issue.

It's only at its peak when you're sitting next to another player, locally engaging in SFXT's brand of tag battles. Online, I found it to be a bit of a mess, and the game's attempts at meaningful character customization fall victim to layers and layers of slow-moving menus and a bundle of additional content that only serves to further confuse the issue.

I Am Alive is extra disappointing because it has so much potential right up front, and then wastes no time squandering all of it. Its premise is exciting but its promise goes wholly unfulfilled, and at some point you've got to stop lauding a game's good ideas and think about how much you actually enjoyed playing it.

Certainly a game that offers up aesthetic beauty, both in its visuals and score. But where it truly shines is in the experience of playing it. In Journey, the mere acts of jumping, running, and sliding around a painstakingly crafted world are enough to invoke strong emotional responses from the player. Every element, every mechanic, every single little thing works in seemingly effortless concert to deliver a game that is experientially beautiful from surface to core.

Even though it has some interesting ideas, it's hard to get excited about yet another take on wave-based survival, especially one that uses the occasionally-clumsy Mass Effect combat as its base. Once you start thinking about how most of the campaign's side content either uses these same multiplayer levels or has you performing extremely basic retrieval tasks, it's easy to start feeling slightly indignant about the whole thing...But only slightly. At the end of the day, Mass Effect 3 is a game for people who liked Mass Effect 2 so much that they absolutely need to see how it all ends. Despite claims to the contrary from the game's publisher, I really don't think newcomers will get much out of it at all.

Even though it has some interesting ideas, it's hard to get excited about yet another take on wave-based survival, especially one that uses the occasionally-clumsy Mass Effect combat as its base. Once you start thinking about how most of the campaign's side content either uses these same multiplayer levels or has you performing extremely basic retrieval tasks, it's easy to start feeling slightly indignant about the whole thing...But only slightly. At the end of the day, Mass Effect 3 is a game for people who liked Mass Effect 2 so much that they absolutely need to see how it all ends. Despite claims to the contrary from the game's publisher, I really don't think newcomers will get much out of it at all.

It's as though the team behind SSX were never quite sure how far toward realistic danger nor straight-up arcade ludicrousness it ought to veer toward, relying on the old school silliness of SSX's snowboarding gameplay to carry the load as the team built a gaggle of new mechanics and concepts around it--some of which don't really gel with that classic SSX flavor. The end result is an experience that can often be tremendous fun, though sometimes almost feels accidentally so.

It's as though the team behind SSX were never quite sure how far toward realistic danger nor straight-up arcade ludicrousness it ought to veer toward, relying on the old school silliness of SSX's snowboarding gameplay to carry the load as the team built a gaggle of new mechanics and concepts around it--some of which don't really gel with that classic SSX flavor. The end result is an experience that can often be tremendous fun, though sometimes almost feels accidentally so.

It feels like the kind of guilty pleasure that you and me, serious players of video games, should be embarrassed for enjoying. What satisfaction could there possibly be in a game that largely plays itself? In spite of the one big, obvious caveat, I kind of love this game.

It's damn hard to talk about video game tennis without bringing up Virtua Tennis, particularly when a game, like Grand Slam Tennis 2, hems so close to that original arcade formula. It's a facsimile that's executed well enough; there just aren't any good reasons to recommend Grand Slam Tennis 2 over the games that it cribs from.

It's damn hard to talk about video game tennis without bringing up Virtua Tennis, particularly when a game, like Grand Slam Tennis 2, hems so close to that original arcade formula. It's a facsimile that's executed well enough; there just aren't any good reasons to recommend Grand Slam Tennis 2 over the games that it cribs from.

Fumbles by stretching what little story it does have much too far.

This is a great game at a great price for a console currently gasping gravely for games. If your Wii is still plugged into a TV-like device, Rhythm Heaven Fever is a game that demands your attention.

Most disappointing is the game's conclusion, which lacks the kind of all-encompassing, universe devouring qualities of some of the series' best entries, switching instead to a sort of Rainbow Road-esque fantasy land that just tosses a bunch of random giant things from the other games together into a technicolor slurry.

The smart players will rise to the challenge and feel like they've been appropriately rewarded for their prowess. The campaign gives you a great look at an interesting world, though its abrupt, too-clean ending feels out of place. It's a somewhat disappointing reward for an otherwise exciting adventure that puts a terrific and fun spin on first-person shooting.

The smart players will rise to the challenge and feel like they've been appropriately rewarded for their prowess. The campaign gives you a great look at an interesting world, though its abrupt, too-clean ending feels out of place. It's a somewhat disappointing reward for an otherwise exciting adventure that puts a terrific and fun spin on first-person shooting.

There are some neat ideas of how to effectively use the various touch screens of the Vita, and the art is gorgeous enough to make the game an able showpiece for what the system can do visually. There just isn't quite enough to the game beyond that to make up for some of its more irritating aspects.

Your ability to possess, displace, and disintegrate a wide range of objects and human beings gives the designers ample opportunity--which they mostly use wisely--to set up unique and mindbending puzzle scenarios, but clunky controls and some basic game flow issues undermine what's otherwise a pretty neat little game.

Electronic Symphony doesn't rebuild the concept of Lumines block-by-block, but this Vita launch game is still the most fun I've had with the franchise since it debuted on the PSP back in 2004.

It can be hard to look past the game's technical issues, which include insane pre-race load times and a frame rate that tends to rob the traditionally breakneck hover racer of its sense of speed. Toss in a UI that's a little too slick for its own good and you end up with something a little more ho-hum than you might be expecting.

Now those very same visuals, and that very same campaign has been placed on a PlayStation Vita cart, and it's actually shocking how well it's fared in translation.

It would probably benefit from an additional mode or two (which, if the trophy list is to be believed, will be coming in the form of a DLC add-on), but with a $10 price tag and a terrific frame rate, Super Stardust Delta makes for a good, strong opener for the Vita's download-only catalog. If sharp-looking action is your thing, it's certainly worth your time.