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.