Playing alone or with online teams (Xbox Live hooks you up), you clean kraut house with sniper rifles, machine guns, and rocket launchers.

Looks beautiful, and is one of the best shooters we've ever played.

The battles themselves are chaotically free-for-all, allowing up to four monsters to grapple hand-to-hand and even rip up handy lampposts, buildings, and cars to bludgeon enemies.

No longer is there just one way to solve a treacherous night mission before the enemy picks up your audio signature: stealth will pay off just as well as good old-fashioned ultraviolence.

You don’t just kill creatures, you make them into abstract art by slicing, dicing, or machine gunning ’em to bits.

It's not all brutality. The Punisher is also one of the most immersive strategy games ever created. Aim for the head and enjoy.

Impresses with smooth, realistic game play and rib-cage-crushing intensity.

In addition to wedging the usual hundreds of teams, stadiums, and plays into the game, NCAA Football 2005 focuses on what makes college football special: the psychotic fans.

Now instead of finding public places to trash, you can make and destroy your own property—but we’re not sure that’s nearly as fun.

So good that it even drew Axl Rose out of hiding (he’s the DJ on the classic rock station, one of 11 listening formats), San Andreas cranks out even more action than "Vice City" as you engage in those wacky gang-related adventures you've grown to love in disconcertingly authentic versions of Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Las Vegas.

If you’re the kind of guy who likes to chop his prey into Sizzlean before he gets a whiff of your bad man musk, then the ninjas of Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven are right up your dojo.

Easy controls help you play chicken with oncoming traffic at speeds so real, you can practically feel the G-forces pinning your jowls against your ears.

No longer is there just one way to solve a treacherous night mission before the enemy picks up your audio signature: stealth will pay off just as well as good old-fashioned ultraviolence.

The action is so intense and over-the-top that you have to wonder if Mario Lemieux would have reconsidered unretirement if he played this game a year earlier.

But the graphics and game play have been juiced up, too, with improved passing, a slightly tougher running game, and lots of combo-move action via manipulation of the right analog stick.

They loaded this year’s ultrarealistic game up with a slew of new features that include online play, a huge arcade-style training camp, and a nifty play creator that’s so versatile that you can have receivers run pass routes that spell your name.

The sickest shooter this side of Xbox killer app "Halo."

A subversive parody that cleverly indicts our depraved culture? If it makes you feel better about having a shitload of sadistic fun, sure.

But don’t take our word for it, because Prince won Best Action-Adventure Game at this year’s E3 expo. So it’s got that going for it…which is nice.

Forget hiking up to the woods for a rain-drenched, cattle-scattering game of paintball. Just hook yourself into PlanetSide for a measly $12.95 per month fee and you can feast on round-the-clock galactic virtual warfare with hundreds of faceless gamers worldwide.

It's not all brutality. The Punisher is also one of the most immersive strategy games ever created. Aim for the head and enjoy.

This game is more than your average links simulation—it’s a lifestyle.

Dispense with kicking and doodle-heavy playbooks, and deploy between-the-leg laterals and double reverses, plus a mess of excellent unsportsmanlike, showboating taunts.

True to its name, this punishing game takes some of the wussiness out of baseball, and we’re not just talking collisions at the plate.

One shot, one kill—this unforgiving, ultrarealistic console shooter is unlike any other.

With better effects (the lighting and environments are better than some movies-like, say, the Resident Evil movie) and slicker motion-capture animation, the new, improved Resident Evil regains the throne as horror-action video game king.

Kiss the rest of your summer (and your loved ones) goodbye and get ready to spend all your waking hours indoors, sitting next to a giant bag of Fritos, agonizing over 4–3 blitz packages.

With speed and smarts to match its outrageous visuals, Painkiller boasts fiendishly clever monsters that attack in groups and learn from your defenses. No corpses shambling around like they have a load in their pants, these are monsters of the 28 Days Later variety: quick and scary.

The action's a teenage fan boy's wet dream, all leering lizard-men and sneering, scantily clad vixens who exchange gunplay and close-range combat moves like speed freaks in a slap fight.

Most of the story is conveyed through masterful animation and acute facial expressions.

After playing this game you’ll understand exactly why, short of a crate of opium-laced Snickers bars, nothing is more satisfying than leveling city blocks by the dozen with a 50-ton robot.

We have to admit that most first-person games nauseate us, but Faction’s smooth graphics and easy gameplay make it hard to put down.

It’s an endless cycle of killing creatures to get bigger weapons so that you can kill even more creatures. But who cares? “Are you not entertained?”

The shooting control takes some getting used to, but stick with it and you’ll advance through a solid plot laced with a meaty hip-hop soundtrack, celebrity voices, and...drumroll...a playable Snoop Dogg! You’ll never need MapQuest in L.A. again.

The most visually impressive football game ever.

No longer is there just one way to solve a treacherous night mission before the enemy picks up your audio signature: stealth will pay off just as well as good old-fashioned ultraviolence.

It's a game that combines gut-churning speed and beyond-recognition wreckage to make road kill out of all others in the driving genre.

It's not all brutality. The Punisher is also one of the most immersive strategy games ever created. Aim for the head and enjoy.

You’ll be sold the second you get into a gang bang with the song “Beat It” playing in the background. It just doesn’t get any better than that.

You’ll be more impressed that you can make Snake stare lecherously at a centerfold poster one minute, only to have him pop out and choke someone to death the next.

And when you tire of solving puzzles using human sacrifices and petrifying foes with Medusa’s severed head, button-mashing mini-games let you unwind by propping Hydra’s jaws open or massacring the Minotaur.

Improves upon already stunning graphics and amps game play with faster speed and such fresh gridiron moves as sidearm passing and—wahoo!—gang tackling.

Action fans might balk at what sounds like a standard role-playing game opening, but Sudeki soon bursts into the most intense, bone-crunching combat you'll find on any platform.

For immersing entertainment, this game is totally up our halfpipe.

The game’s simple batting and fielding controls make it easy on novices, while the in-depth pitching options give purists something to chew on as they cycle through a loaded arsenal of head-spinning tosses.

You can also race through a shitstorm of artillery fire in a Porsche Cayenne Turbo (complete with “Q-cloak” invisibility feature) or missile-firing Triumph Daytona 600.

For immersing entertainment, this game is totally up our halfpipe.

It looks so realistic that you’d swear that you’re watching a television broadcast—fake-breasted cheerleaders and all.

Cool options such as friend/foe identification and threat readings, plus the best graphics ever on an N64 game.

A thousand yards beyond any other college football game.

But don't take our word for it, because Prince won Best Action-Adventure Game at this year's E3 expo. So it's got that going for it…which is nice.

Its fast and realistic action should make any joystick jock forget how badly his team is doing in real life, and the endless Dynasty mode will make classes optional for months.

This game is easier to play than a sorority co-ed. In fact, the gameplay is so basic you can handle it easily while half in the bag.

Kiss the rest of your summer (and your loved ones) goodbye and get ready to spend all your waking hours indoors, sitting next to a giant bag of Fritos, agonizing over 4–3 blitz packages.

Dispense with kicking and doodle-heavy playbooks, and deploy between-the-leg laterals and double reverses, plus a mess of excellent unsportsmanlike, showboating taunts.

Kiss the rest of your summer (and your loved ones) goodbye and get ready to spend all your waking hours indoors, sitting next to a giant bag of Fritos, agonizing over 4–3 blitz packages.

This isn’t only one of the best looking and most intense PlayStation 2 games, it’s also hands down the loudest.

The sickest shooter this side of Xbox killer app "Halo."

Hot Pursuit not only gives you the keys to more than 20 exotic cars, it also gives you the unsurpassed joy of leaving traffic cops in the dust.

With amazing visuals and an arsenal that would make Saddam Hussein soil his prayer mat, C&C Generals is war at its flashiest.

Incredibly atmospheric (it makes great use of flickering lights, icy landscapes, and foreboding corridors) without skimping on the screams, The Thing is a terrifying battle to the finish.

But don't take our word for it, because Prince won Best Action-Adventure Game at this year's E3 expo. So it's got that going for it…which is nice.

The new Pitcher Confidence Meter adds a psychological twist: paint the corners a few times, and your control grows sharper...but if you're consistently outside, your insecurity will sink you—just like in the bedroom!

Unlike the previous Sims games, all of these citizens are controlled by actual people. In other words, you might want to double-check the genders of those two cuties before you try to score the world’s first virtual hot-tub ménage à trois.

You’ll finally answer some of life’s most burning questions, like how your Suburu Impreza station wagon would fare against a 2002 Dodge Viper on a racetrack.

Its fast and realistic action should make any joystick jock forget how badly his team is doing in real life, and the endless Dynasty mode will make classes optional for months.

Halo 2 completely lives up to the hype. An improvement in every way over the original, particularly in terms of playability and graphics.

But the graphics and game play have been juiced up, too, with improved passing, a slightly tougher running game, and lots of combo-move action via manipulation of the right analog stick.

If the game were any more detailed, they would have to include a “Record Shitty Rap Album” mode.

Incredibly atmospheric (it makes great use of flickering lights, icy landscapes, and foreboding corridors) without skimping on the screams, The Thing is a terrifying battle to the finish.

The body count is rivaled only by novel game-play features and production values that make blood spurts akin to snowflakes-no two are the same.

Completely reinvented in glorious 3-D, WCIII spruces up the age-old premise—organize armies and send them into battle against opposing forces—with much-improved graphics and a new pyrotechnic spell-casting system.

Incredibly atmospheric (it makes great use of flickering lights, icy landscapes, and foreboding corridors) without skimping on the screams, The Thing is a terrifying battle to the finish.

Dispense with kicking and doodle-heavy playbooks, and deploy between-the-leg laterals and double reverses, plus a mess of excellent unsportsmanlike, showboating taunts.

Be afraid. The intelligent, fast-moving fiends who stalk special agent Leon Kennedy will almost make you yearn for the embrace of old-fashioned brain-hungry cadavers.

It's lacking any social conscience but loaded with replay value, so it'd be very disrespectful to leave this one out of your collection.

The sleaziness of recruiting players to build a powerhouse program is almost worth the price of admission alone, but it’s a damn shame that you can’t bribe them when push comes to shove.

In addition to wedging the usual hundreds of teams, stadiums, and plays into the game, NCAA Football 2005 focuses on what makes college football special: the psychotic fans.

The sickest shooter this side of Xbox killer app "Halo."

But don’t take our word for it, because Prince won Best Action-Adventure Game at this year’s E3 expo. So it’s got that going for it…which is nice.

An all-around crowd pleaser with great weapons, exotic locales, and enough mystery to keep you coming back for more.

Microsoft Game Studio's answer to Sony's automotive masterpiece is simple-add online play and program cars that take realistic damage.

The shooting control takes some getting used to, but stick with it and you’ll advance through a solid plot laced with a meaty hip-hop soundtrack, celebrity voices, and…drumroll…a playable Snoop Dogg! You’ll never need MapQuest in L.A. again.

In the end, you'll be reminded why Hell is such a bad place to spend eternity-but such a good place for four friends to join in multiplayer bullet-tossing.

Playing as heavily-armed rodents or goose-stepping teddy bears, up to 16 people can torch each other. It's more of everything you loved.

The gameplay is so addicting that you might just forget that there’s no chance of Venus Williams’ mini-skirt fluttering up in the wind.

Thankfully, you can slow time, Matrix-style, to get out of the more harrowing battles, while the game's controls are smoother than Moby's head.

You’re not going to get a more realistic driving experience without nicking the keys to dad’s Delorean. Is GT4 more fetish than game? Probably. But if this is a fetish, then put a leather hood on us and whip us till we bleed!

They loaded this year’s ultrarealistic game up with a slew of new features that include online play, a huge arcade-style training camp, and a nifty play creator that’s so versatile that you can have receivers run pass routes that spell your name.

For immersing entertainment, this game is totally up our halfpipe.

In addition to wedging the usual hundreds of teams, stadiums, and plays into the game, NCAA Football 2005 focuses on what makes college football special: the psychotic fans.

You can also race through a shitstorm of artillery fire in a Porsche Cayenne Turbo (complete with “Q-cloak” invisibility feature) or missile-firing Triumph Daytona 600.

The gore is gorier, the booms are boomier, and the guns are gunnier—RE:CVX takes an already near-flawless game and makes it even better.

George Clooney would crap A Perfect Storm if he had to endure the watery challenges in this stomach-churning thrill ride.

The hail of artillery shells on the Omaha Beach assault level will make you crap your shorts, as they blow away your eardrums and half of your platoon’s limbs.

In online, single player, or cooperative play, perform slick maneuvers like rooftop bike jumps, and earn “Bond Moment” points for unlockable weapons and levels.

No longer is there just one way to solve a treacherous night mission before the enemy picks up your audio signature: stealth will pay off just as well as good old-fashioned ultraviolence.

Practice makes perfect, and EA/Maxis have cooked up a godly tool that’ll get your feet wet in the dating pool without getting your face slapped.