This year's installment features overachieving impact players who are highlighted on the field during games, your very own dorm room (where you can check your stats, store your trophies, etc…), and revamped training games that are addictive as beer nuts.

There are dozens of dazzling tracks, and the play gets fast, manic and difficult, but somehow always retains a magically fun ingredient.

Online support for PS2 and Xbox plus multiple race modes will keep you on the track for days.

We're fond of the new Hitter's Eye feature, which means that the ball changes color as it leaves the pitcher's hand, letting the batter know what kind of pitch is on the way to the plate. Red means breaking ball; white means fastball; green means changeup; and brown means that Randy Johnson has been into the Skoal tin again.

The entire SNES-era "Super Punch-Out!!," one of the greatest boxing games of all times, is hidden on the disc. All hail the mighty Bald Bull!

We're fond of the new Hitter's Eye feature, which means that the ball changes color as it leaves the pitcher's hand, letting the batter know what kind of pitch is on the way to the plate. Red means breaking ball; white means fastball; green means changeup; and brown means that Randy Johnson has been into the Skoal tin again.

Instead of going with a standard driver, we created a homicidal redneck with the Create-a-Driver option. Well, all we really did was rebuild Dale Jarrett with his old mustache. He just didn't look right without it.

Once again, EA and Madden manage to do the impossible: They made us fall head-over-cleats in love with this frigging game all over again.

Running missions for the factions is compelling enough, but the real fun comes from hunting down the Deck of 52-the 52 baddest guys in the game. The first handful totally roll over with their Christmas hams in the air, but the latter guys will leave you begging for sweet, sweet mercy.

High-def heads will benefit from the 480p progressive scan support. The rest of you will just have to keep squinting and hating people who own nice TVs.

New powers, faster combat and new environments - such as Korriban, ancient Sith Lord burial ground - make this trip to KOTOR-ville more than just an Old Republic retread. [Jan 2005, p.54]

The fighting engine is the tightest in the business.

There are no ogres to impale, no weapons (unless a fishing pole counts as a weapon), no panty-flashing fights between Amazons. Like your stoner brother, the game is a little too laid back for its own good, doesn't have any goals, and it farts like muffler-less Buick whenever it eats peanuts.

The sequel features even more happy, shiny, Hello Kitty!—style idiocy. But peel away the idiocy, and you'll find the same dull, creatively bankrupt ball-rolling mini-game as the original.

The best boxing game in the business keeps getting better.

Though it's a great title in the Zelda franchise, the action is hindered by all the extra equipment necessary to get the most out of it.

Once again, EA and Madden manage to do the impossible: They made us fall head-over-cleats in love with this frigging game all over again.

This is easily best Prince of Persia game yet. The new moves, including those delicious stealth kills, work perfectly.

Once you get sucked into Franchise Mode, you very well might not make it out.

We were haters at first, but the new P.O.V. started to grow on us. Watching our character cartwheel through the air like a T.J. Hooker stunt double makes for some heady moments.

Odds are this game will complete you. Spending hour after hour earning points to gain new abilities becomes a kind of subhuman mania.

Hiding in the bushes and setting "whip" traps with branches, then watching guards walk into them is old-fashioned, sadistic fun. But the game doesn't really hit its stride until its second half, when your inner wild-child side surfaces, and you start tearing ass around the jungle like the wolfman after guzzling a keg of hard cider.

You’ll get at least 40 or 50 hours of game play, and that’s before you get to the mini-puzzles.

The legs are long, the sex is gratuitous, and the violence is very, very violent. DOA 4 is definitely firing on all pistons. Still, for a series with the word "alive" on the box cover, these characters all seem kind of plastic, hollow, heartless, and downright bloodless.

While the game is open-ended, the method of playing it is not. You can't roam vast maps as freely as you can in "Grand Theft Auto." Still, Albion is a big, and, thanks to the stellar graphics, a beautiful place to wander.

If you think you might be an RPG fan, this is definitely one to grab.

If you want to make the most of the game, you’ll have to walk through the entire qualification process. Since it’s governed by actual military rules, you’re looking at a good couple of days from boot camp to field operations.

And yet there's still something here that kept us playing to the end. Can't quite put our finger on it...ah yes, now we remember what it was: This game has a story that's almost too damn good for a video game.