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.

Think of it as a choose-your-own-adventure book set in the Edo period of Japanese history—in other words, a very special form of excruciating, ritual torture.

Some of the better moves defy gravity and reason—such as the four-man pile driver. The game doesn't reveal who these freaks are or why they're fighting, but extensive research has revealed they're based on a line of rubber toys and a disturbing '80s TV show.

Adding live online support and a fantasy-league “Mogul” mode that lets you trade players, track stats, and haggle over TV rights? OK, we’re really psyched.

Adding live online support and a fantasy-league “Mogul” mode that lets you trade players, track stats, and haggle over TV rights? OK, we’re really psyched.

Deploying psychic powers to solve puzzles further taxes your melon and sets the game apart from feeble-minded run 'n' gunners, earning Psi Ops the coveted Best Carrie-Meets-Rambo Game of the Year Award.

Deploying psychic powers to solve puzzles further taxes your melon and sets the game apart from feeble-minded run 'n' gunners, earning Psi Ops the coveted Best Carrie-Meets-Rambo Game of the Year Award.

The grimy and amazing graphics, plus gory, well-paced game play, wrapped in a worthwhile story add up to a surprise hit. If only Diesel's movies could be this good.

The wacky sensibility will give you a few chuckles, while the insane difficulty level takes you on a masochistic tour of your squandered youth.

Decent graphics and gory (if kinda short) game play will keep most players nailed to the controller, but sometimes wretched camera placement sucks harder than the minions of Dracula at a Red Cross blood drive.

Decent graphics and gory (if kinda short) game play will keep most players nailed to the controller, but sometimes wretched camera placement sucks harder than the minions of Dracula at a Red Cross blood drive.

Your hard-won mastery of the throttle and brake can mean the difference between surviving to the next stage or taking in the scenery from the bottom of a roadside ditch.

Show-offs can even stealthily duck behind cover and shoot at foes’ feet to make ’em jig like Michael Flatley sans Ritalin.

You can practically hear the warbly ocarina, feel the saddle sores and smell Clint Eastwood’s foul, hand-rolled cigar in this video game homage to spaghetti westerns.

The straightforward online action in Paragon City gives you instant access to hordes of computer-controlled villains to vaporize, but the real payoff comes in teaming up with other misfit crime fighters for orgies of virtuous ass kicking.

Ah, gay Paris. The sights, the sounds, the frothing hordes of time-traveling Japanese demons. Wait...what?...Minor complaints aside, Onimusha 3 is amazing. It breathes new life into a familiar genre and makes France, well, kinda cool.

Difficult navigation and slow play require Zen-like patience, but riches await the persistent. You’ll revel in a bowel-loosening atmosphere, brain-twisting puzzles, and voice acting surpassed in horror only by "My Slutty Wife XIX."

The tight controls are a cinch for novices, but obsessive attention to detail will score with fanatics.

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.

Easy-to-master controls, new camera angles, customizable teams, legendary players like Babe Ruth and Jackie Robinson—don’t wait for Mother Nature’s lazy ass; spring starts now.

Eighty-four hyper-detailed players are represented, or you can create your own baller and go rags-to-riches, racking up pimp-wear and "Scarface"-worthy real estate.

Instead of the usual push-button pugilism, throw punches using the analog stick—the direction and speed of the stick determine the swing; the trigger controls handle bobbing, weaving, and blocking.

Instead of the usual push-button pugilism, throw punches using the analog stick-the direction and speed of the stick determine the swing; the trigger controls handle bobbing, weaving, and blocking.

Eighty-four hyper-detailed players are represented, or you can create your own baller and go rags-to-riches, racking up pimp-wear and "Scarface"-worthy real estate.

Guaranteed to raise the purple manga-style hairs on your neck.

Passing and shooting in these high-scoring battles is as easy as squeezing the trigger on an Uzi, but complicated button-mashing for trick moves, muddy graphics, and a schizophrenic soundtrack of Method Man, TLC, and Foo Fighters all draw red cards.

Passing and shooting in these high-scoring battles is as easy as squeezing the trigger on an Uzi, but complicated button-mashing for trick moves, muddy graphics, and a schizophrenic soundtrack of Method Man, TLC, and Foo Fighters all draw red cards.

Easy-to-master controls, new camera angles, customizable teams, legendary players like Babe Ruth and Jackie Robinson—don’t wait for Mother Nature’s lazy ass; spring starts now.