For parents, this is a sure-fire hit. For Gamers, keep an open mind. There is something under the cuddly hood. For Gamer parents, don't pass this up.

In the 80s, these choose-your-own-adventure books were novel and exciting, particularly on your way to discovering some of the well written Infocom adventures. But today, on an iPad, Blood of the Zombies is a tedious relic, not unlike playing Adventure on an Atari 2600 emulator. It might sound like a cool idea until you're actually doing it. Some things are better off remembered instead of experienced.

I have no recollection of how the original game progressed - I mainly just remember the moment-to-moment glee of splattering pedestrians - but this iOS version is a series of unlockable levels, a collection of unlockable cars, a garage full of car upgrades, and variable goals for each level. If that's not enough, leaderboards, achievements, and challenges are all supported on Gamecenter. In other words, a whole lot of incentive to drive, smash, and splatter.

It knows. It understands. But not blindly, not slavishly. More than a fan of X-Com, this game is a fan of the tenets of modern game design. It's doing exactly the right thing, in exactly the right ways, at exactly the right time.

I'm not terribly surprised that the studio that made the first Borderlands has created such a wildly good gunplay-based action RPG. But I'm surprised that the studio that stitched together Duke Nukem Forever and all those Brothers in Arms games has also made it such a joy to discover for reasons other than the awesome guns and gunplay. Bravo, Gearbox.

Yes, this is just like Raccoon City all over again: stilted, awkward, ridiculous, embarrassing, tedious. Except for the parts where it's like Call of Duty, which are equally stilted, awkward, ridiculous, embarrassing, and tedious, but with more NPC soldiers milling about. Resident Evil 6 is thoroughly oblivious to so many of the things that make a good game these days.

Torchlight II's willingness to play tough is only one of its selling points, but it's arguably what sets it apart from the other good latest-gen action RPGs you could be playing right now (Diablo III, Borderlands 2, Darksiders II, and Guild Wars 2 come to mind).

Dungeon Raid was based on building up your RPG character and earning high scores. But with its crass Farmville skin, Puzzle Craft is ultimately a variation on one of those godawful free-to-play play-now-m'lord microtranscation boondoogles. It's like a time waster wrapped around a time waster. Time wasters all the way down.

I can count on two hands the games I've loved as much as I now love Guild Wars 2. This isn't just a great example of the genre and arguably the Second Coming of MMOs. It isn't even just one of the best games I've ever played. This is what happens when a group of talented, smart, dedicated, imaginative, bold, consumer-friendly creators get together and spend years solving problems and making something wonderful.

I suspect Zen Studios intended it to be player friendly, designed to appeal to casual players unaccustomed to pinball. The result is minimal opportunities to lose the ball, lots of extra balls, frequent multiballs, and liberally activated kickbacks.

This new presentation is particularly appropriate since the entire game is such an enthusiastic package. This isn't just a way to play Lost Cities matches. It's a whole silly metagame, with four different AI opponents, ingame emoticon chat, goals, and leveling up.

A central fact about San Juan is that you're playing against the shuffle more than you're playing against the other players. If you're willing to draw out a ten-minute solitaire game into however long your asynchronous matches take, San Juan has multiplayer support. And even if you're not into multiplayer, it has a nifty take on leaderboards.

The gear in Darksiders II is only as important as the combat, and the combat simply isn't that important. If there's one place the mostly satisfying and smartly designed Darksiders II needed more streamlining, it was the monty haul and the corresponding hack-and-slash.

One of the brilliant touches in maniac mode is how Bug Princess 2 literally fills the screen with your score. When you convert bullets into points, the number appears on the screen where the bullet used to be. When you pull this off correctly, overlapping 9999s fill the screen. It's one of the most gratifying experiences you can have in a videogame (Cave's Espgaluda works similarly, but it's no Bug Princess).

A middling open-world game can get by if it's well paced. The Saboteur and Prototype 2, for instance, weren't necessarily good, but they moved. Really moved. They pulled you forward, thanks in large part to great progression systems. There is no such sense of progression in Sleeping Dogs. You have a few tracks that gradually unlock moves you may never use.

If you play shmups because you like to wrestle with cool scoring systems, there's not much here for you. But if you play shmups for the mindlessness of dodging bullets and watching things blow up, this is a viable choice: crisp, lively, loud, busy, obligingly World War II.

With its forgettable competence, Dariusburst very nearly turned me off of the entire genre of iPad shmups.

All the cool stuff 1000000 gets right - the strategy, the long-term persistence, the loot, the leveling up - falls apart when I have to back up and align two tiles just so in order to convince the game that I want to move in the direction I want to move. It doesn't happen often. But it happens regularly enough to kill what would otherwise be a pretty cool game.

A nice, boring, middle-of-the-road review score just to ensure no one will ever read this.

As an iPad game, Small World is a big disappointment. But as an advertisement for the boardgame…well, I've just ordered the basic set and two of the expansions. Mission accomplished, Days of Wonder! There aren't many iPhone games that end up costing me another $50 after I've bought them, much less disappointing iPhone games.

The bottom line is that Zombie HQ is not a game. It's a shameless business model.

Less ambitious MMOs break less dramatically. But The Secret World breaks differently, crushingly, almost tragically. There are various explanations and workarounds and excuses, and it mostly comes down to the simple fact that making games is hard and making MMOs is even harder. Funcom is simply unable to make the game they designed.

It's all such an uninspired riff on Rocksteady's Batman masterpiece, with the stink of a mandate from a boardroom to make it like that Batman game that did so well. But Arkaham City was built from the ground up because it suited the character. The Amazing Spider-Man is entirely borrowed.

These tables aren't a very good fit for the 3DS. Instead, they're a good fit for sales. Paranormal Activity, Mars, Secrets of the Deep, and Epic Quest? What? Who? What movies were they in? But Iron Man and Captain America? Who can blame Zen Studios for making the most out of their licensing deals?

Tightly pieced together, efficient, muscular if not nimble.

Dirt Showdown is all the in-between stuff from other racing games. It's those filler events you had to play to get to the next actual race. Basically, driving game gametax, now given its own game. It's as if someone lifted up all the rally races from the previous Dirts, swept out the detritus that was left, collected it into a tidy little pile, and then slapped a name on it. Dirt Showdown.

If I want to break stuff and collect things, there no way quite so mindlessly obliging as Lego Batman 2.

The overall effect is like taking a broom or a flamethrower to the rules, completely undermining the game as designed. Which is something I couldn't be happier to see, because the game as designed is in dire need of undermining. If there's anything that can breathe life into Magic the Gathering, it's a shake-up like planechasing.

The reality-bending and dimension hopping are nicely realized, and the whole idea of having to find gems for a magic glove lends itself well to a pinball table. Here's a great example of how to do obscure lore in a pinball table.

This is the same disappointing strategy game it was a year and a half ago, except that it now has two finicky and mostly unimpressive systems shoehorned in.

The best action RPGs are carefully calculated to go directly from the lizard brain to the index finger. Krater, an action RPG from a small Swedish studio, instead meanders, gets lost, and ends up in a quiet cul de sac somewhere around the cerebellum.

Rebellion is nearly as revolutionary with its new subfactions, and it's easily as revolutionary with its new victory conditions.

If you want to play a shallow fighting game that combines bad humor, cheesecake, and gore, Splatterhouse would be delighted to get a little of your attention. It knows what it is and it delivers. But the gravest insult in Lollipop Chainsaw is that it's such an obvious and vapid attempt at Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Bayonetta. You, ma'am, are no Bayonetta.

Inversion drinks deeply from the Gears of War well, including the same basic combat model, the same generic space marines, and the same overwrought investment in its own bad story. But there's none of Gears' heft or kick. Instead, Inversion has that lightweight feel usually reserved for the first level of a game before you get the useful weapons.

Plague Inc even has a sense for the importance of meta-game progression. Pandemic has special traits you unlock for later games, but Plague Inc gives you entirely new "classes" to unlock and play, starting with a hearty bacteria and progressing all the way up to manufactured bioweapons.

Jared is concerned that you're not guiding him through appropriately leveled encounters and bosses. Is he supposed to actually fight that dragon by the lake? What about the huge cyclops lumbering out of the forest? Shouldn't there be a word or a number in red? Shouldn't there be a sign?

The shootporn is satisfying enough, if you're into that sort of thing. I know I am. Which is why I have so little patience for how often the awful story and grim prattle get in the way.

This sequel either improves on or extends the original in every way.

The biggest problem with Starhawk - and unfortunately, it's a doozy - is a crushing lack of identity.

It's a real thumb in the eye to have to suffer through a launch that was exactly like any MMO launch. It's a sad reality that too many of us have accepted DRM with gritted teeth and open wallets, so this is likely the price of AAA gaming for the foreseeable future. Us sheep get what we deserve, which is a Diablo III, a fine game for playing solo, with all the pitfalls of an online game.

For gamers out there like myself who cut their teeth on R.B.I. Baseball rather than Strat-O-Matic, I highly recommend this as a supplemental experience to today's console baseball titles. It may just supplant them in your imagination, as it's a platform to weave believable baseball tales of any stripe, at whatever speed or level of control you desire.

Tuning issues aside, Warlock is a fantasy strategy game that's more than just Civilization with dragons and elves because it's not Civilization at all. Far too many strategy games rely on Sid Meiers' classic formula, often bogging down in the process. It's nice to see a developer getting back to the basics and down in the trenches with goblins, werewolves, skeletons, dragons, clerics and the odd angry fireball.

So as far as a tabletop game, Nightfall is just weird enough to be worthwhile. But as an iPhone port, Nightfall is a disappointing mess. That I'm no longer playing.

But I love that someone is still making - and putting onto the iTunes store - something so barely this side of the theoretical stages. Fertang has about as much dressing as it can bear before becoming something else.

Choose a lane, endure, upgrade, push, endure, upgrade, push, repeat. I forget, does familiarity breed contempt or content?

It knows how to infect a gamer for the long run.

The best thing Skullgirls, a moderately demanding fighting game, has going for a fighting game dilettante like me is the character design, which focuses its considerably creativity and love on a few characters.

And that's about all Prototype 2 has to offer in terms of storytelling: insultingly obvious, overintentionally gritty, childish, churlish. Just shut up, already, Prototype 2. You're not impressing anyone. I have never skipped so many cutscenes so quickly and so willingly.

Waking Mars is just about the coolest new thing I've seen someone do with a side-scrolling Castlevania/Metroid exploration game.

There's a lot more to recommend Xenoblade Chronicles. The dialogue, the humor, the artwork, the prophecy system, the music, the variety of environments, the character progression, the crafting system, the crazy quest density, the quest quality, the memorable characters, the collectibles, the secrets, and so on. This is a landmark achievement in the genre. As of its release, you can no longer talk about great RPGs, or maybe even great games, without also talking about Xenoblade Chronicles.

A colossal disappointment for how it takes something I really want - an iPhone version of Pandemic - and manages to screw it up completely, reducing me to frustrated stabbing at impossibly tiny icons.

Pinball Arcade fails one crucial part of videogame pinball. It has no sense for the social elements that make Pinball FX 2 so effective, and that are therefore an integral part of videogame pinball.

The scripted sterility of a Ridge Racer and the destructibility of a FlatOut go togther like peanut butter and fish oil. This arcade racer deserves credit for elevating the Ridge Racer name above the level of a punchline. But it doesn't manage to crucial task of giving you a reason to play it instead of the current standards of arcade racing likeSplit Second, Midnight Club: Los Angeles, or Driver.

The game is designed for me and my friends, except I can't play with them because there is no multiplayer. And when I play by myself, the AI commits suicide. The presentation and art sure are slick. They get five stars. The rest of it gets zero. Average it out.

Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City is one of the worst games I've really liked in a long time.

Kid Icarus knows enough to be more complicated and rewarding than any simple Rogue Squadron or light gun game. It knows enough to tap into the nearly universal appeal of loot chasing.

I get the sense that Sine Mora was made by people who love the best of the older shmups and want to present what made them great to the merely curious like me who are never going to play old side-scrollers on the NeoGeo or Dreamcast or whatever. And one of the highest praises I can offer Sine Mora is that perhaps more than any other such game, it makes me want to get better at 2D sidescrolling shooters.

With the emphasis on fighting, the co-op survival mode is a great way for two players to jump right into the combat, defending piles of supplies from waves of attackers and earning money to buy power-ups. Since it's on a single screen, this is about as perfect a local co-op game as you could ask for.

It mostly reminded me of some of the dull and barely interactive bits of Uncharted 3. I think the lesson here is that deserts are often poorly suited to games without dune buggies...There's no challenge and no real gameplay, which isn't necessarily a criticism. It's sort of like Shadow of the Colossus without any colossi, or Ico without the little girl.

There's no debate whether Mass Effect 3 is a good game. It has good combat, an effective atmosphere, satisfying resolution, and a few great characters. Co-op is surprisingly entertaining. Bioware has finally settled on a good balance of RPG elements, too. It's easy to dismiss most of the nitpicks. It's the best game in the series for all these reasons...Instead, I argue about whether Mass Effect 3 is a great game. I write about it because I deeply care about Bioware as a developer. I want Bioware to strengthen choice and consequence and master character writing so I can consider their games to be classics again. At the very least, I'm no longer left out of this series now that I appreciate the combat and the universe.

The overall takeaway I get while playing SSX: sometimes EA gets it exactly right. Sometimes their experience from a dozen misguided games, and a half dozen decent games, and two or three really good games is distilled into one perfect example of how some AAA titles are every bit as awesome as they're supposed to be.

Red Wasp Design seems to prefer detail to elegance, and that's exactly the wrong call to make on the iPhone. It's also a damn shame in a game with such an obvious affection for its own characters and the Lovecraft mythos.

So it turns out that Wargame: European Escalation isn't just good. It's also unique.

It's every generic shooter you've forgotten you played, come back to be forgotten again...Oh, did I mention there's bullet time? Because there's bullet time.

But there's something mildly sadistic about Crusader Kings II's complexity and reach. Maybe even passively aggressively sadistic. I'm not saying it's not accessible, becuase it is, to an extent.

This game is crazy Neapolitan through and through, with a sense of mad glee for how frequently and flagrantly it breaks the rules.

It even looks fantastic, with an emphasis on cel-shaded splatter horror. The Darkness II plays as if it were an homage to the EC Comics of the 40s and 50s. It has that same grimly colorful and colorfully grim vibe in its approach to crucifixion, torture, madness, hell, and a demon who pees on bodies and farts in their dead faces.

As I played - or tried to play - these games, I found myself wondering if Tiffany Melson is on Facebook. Which would never happen if I had playable versions of Gauntlet, APB, Rampage, and Defender.

I don't mind in the least the game's modest production values, but I do wish that Illwinter was more hip to certain modern game design principles, like how to play us out of a game.

It's a bit like a fighting game that offers distinct player characters, but no information about what the characters can do, or how you should play them, or their relative strengths and weaknesses. That's all for you to figure out because, apparently, the developers were too busy making the game to teach you anything. You have to take the initiative and set up solo games against the AI bots.

There is absolutely nothing casual about this game. But it's incredibly gratifying to finally nail a puzzle in the same way that it's gratifying to nail a song in DDR or a level in Patapon. Rhythm Heaven Fever, which seems to know full well how hard it's pushing you, is eventually as satisfying as it is infuriating.

This persistence is Epic Quest's most notable feature. Think of it as an experiment in building an ongoing leveling system onto a single table.

Unstoppable Gorg's gloriously goofy, brash, and cheerful presentation is some of the most delicious 50s B-movie sci fi cheese since War of the Monsters on the Playstation 2.

What it all comes down to is this question: Is Caylus a good candidate for porting to the iPhone? Given the length of games, given the poor multiplayer support, given that the elegance of the boardgame is lost entirely, I suspect the answer might be "no". Which is a real shame after Big Daddy Creations so successfully ported Neuroshima Hex to the iPhone.

If there's no payoff - or, as is the case here, if the payoff is hidden behind such a clot of unavoidable tedium that it ultimately overwhelms how much I care about reaching that payoff - then hasn't the game failed? The balancing act for any game designer is to make me care in proportion to the challenge level you throw at me. And given how close I must be to the end, and how little I care to push on, Final Fantasy XIII-2 ultimately fails.

Assuming that you accept that Resident Evil isn't a game about running backwards and spewing ammo, you'll find here another wonderfully tense shooter.

The new character customization is either much better or much worse, depending on what you're looking for in character customization. If you want to put stickers on your cape or make a short Asteroth, Soulcalibur V is the game for you. But if you want Soulcalibur IV's indepth unlockable stat-based equipment RPG, well, Soulcalibur IV is the game for you. Because Soulcalibur V has none of that. What a disappointing step backwards.

For the most part, this is a game about running around for five minutes and then a long grind of the winner winning until he wins while the loser loses. Press "F" to watch.

Kudos to the developers of Flip Ship for not succumbing to the obvious trend to micropayments. When you buy Flip Ship, you get a self-contained package where high scores are strictly and entirely a matter of how good, lucky, and persistent you are. Put away your nickels, because they aren't any help here. Flip Ship is all about the choices you make.

Triple Town is yet another clever game hobbled by yet another mercenary business decision.

Saints Row 3 is a tough act to follow, particularly given how much awesome over-the-top stuff is already in there. But dribbling out forgettable and pointless content like Genki Bowl is exactly the wrong way to follow it.

Hero Academy is simple, simplistic, and ultimately unsatisfying. You might as well find a friend and take turns punching each other in the arm to see who gives up first.

Zen Pinball 3D is no quick n' dirty port. It's a lovely new way to enjoy Zen Pinball on the go.

It feels disappointingly slight, partly for the writing, partly for all the repetition, partly for the weirdly useless local multiplayer, and mostly for the smallness of it, hemmed in as it is by doors for the inevitable DLC. Suddenly it's over and you're left to grind if you're so inclined.

It all comes down to the fact that I would rather pay for a carefully tuned game than get a financially optimized one for free. But I guess if a developer's going to screw up the equation, they might as well do it with a game as good as Jetpack Joyride.

The problem with Orcs Must Die isn't necessarily Orcs Must Die. The problem is Toy Solders: Cold War, Plants vs. Zombies, Defender Chronicles, and Dungeon Defenders. Because a good tower defense game is just the first step to a good full-featured tower defense game.

This is the sort of wheelsport the Need for Speed arcade racers should have been providing all along.

I'd say that literally more than half of the game's systems are entirely unexplained, if not completely hidden from anyone who doesn't accidentally stumble onto them. All downloadable games have a "How to Play" section, but few are as devoid of useful information at Fusion: Genesis'.

If your kids/wife/girlfriend/parents can grok a finicky numbers game, this will be right up their alley. But otherwise, this is a videoboardgame for hardcore strategy nerds. Who don't mind playing with Miis.