Eye-popping.

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

The problem here is Blitz is a lot like Jerry Springer: if you’ve seen one episode, you’ve seen them all. This year’s edition does little to dispel that theory, since it comes with only a handful of new features, none of which include online play.

With its tongue-in-cheek take on street life, this consummate B-baller keeps it more real than most of today’s endorsement-whore NBA superstars.

Sega added online play, a deeper Franchise Mode, and may have made the biggest acquisition of the off-season by reeling in ESPN to punch up their pigskin.

A robust online play mode is just impressive enough to make us think that this franchise is back on the cusp of respectability. But then again, that’s what everyone has been saying about the Cincinnati Bengals for the past 10 years.

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.

With its tongue-in-cheek take on street life, this consummate B-baller keeps it more real than most of today’s endorsement-whore NBA superstars.

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 problem here is Blitz is a lot like Jerry Springer: if you’ve seen one episode, you’ve seen them all. This year’s edition does little to dispel that theory, since it comes with only a handful of new features, none of which include online play.

The ho-hum game play won’t wow you.

[Its] shortcomings make it hard to recommend if you’ve bought a previous edition in the past, but it’s just so damn fun to play and watch that it might be worth picking up anyway.

Your all-terrain vehicles come equipped with oil slicks, smoke screens, and acid bombs that are so fun to use that it's hard to tell if it's more fun to use contraband or smuggle it.

Now we don’t mean to be football snobs here, but there’s just something wrong when a downfield bomb takes longer to drop than the Goodyear blimp. Just ask the unconscious wide receiver that got clocked by a safety waiting for it to come down.

As an engrossing adventure, Kri doesn’t cut very deep, but where quick, visceral payoffs are concerned, it goes straight for the jugular.

An addictive romp.

While the graphics are different from previous Taxi incarnations, the goal of this romp is the same.

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.

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.

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.

Pathetically boring.

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.

The only thing more painful than watching a rehashed movie sequel is, well, playing a videogame based on a rehashed sequel.

Though some of the button-smashing combos are tricky to execute, the multiplayer action is solid, and the quest mode stirs in puzzle solving for antisocial savages who prefer going solo.

If you think the best parts of movies involve explosions, car chases, and death-defying leaps (is there anything else?), then this homage to Hollywood’s unsung lunatics is just the thing for you.

Pathetically boring.

Extreme games keep getting extremer, but it would be tough to top this hellish twist on motocross racing.

Taking hairpin turns and navigating loop-the-loops at 500 mph is Wipeout’s equivalent of a boring straightaway.