Playing this hyperactive hoops sim is like fast-forwarding your way through a Spike Lee–directed Nike commercial while beer-bonging a liter of Jolt cola.

With a harrowing 16-mission single-player experience, and monstrous multiplayer arenas, this disc is worthy of your hard-earned per diem, grunt.

As far as sequels go, Fight for NY is to "Vendetta" what "The Empire Strikes Back" was to "Star Wars."

Mindless hack-and-whack style gameplay stays hot thanks to interesting objectives. Spartan is constantly throwing new gameplay elements at you.

Advanced Warfighter on the 360 is so beautiful, we actually dry-humped our conference room TV set. And yes, it was the closest we've come to having an actual relationship in several years.

Elaborate levels and the multiple paths you can take to solve them go a long way in making you forget about the lack of narrative element.

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.

With six courses, 19-plus characters, and a hefty "Career" mode, this disc will knock "Lumines" out of your PSP (for a week or two at least).

An ultra in-depth Dynasty Mode and online capabilities will keep you playing until NCAA 2006, or at least until the new Madden comes out.

If your racing game strategy usually involves driving your car like the Death Mobile in "Animal House," you won't get far in Forza. Damage modeling affects your car's performance and even the slightest fender-bender can wreck your front-end alignment, which means your car will pull either left or right for the remainder of the race.

Wounded? Hit the Y button, and like a wet dog coming out of a lake, Stranger gets rid of his damage by shaking it off.

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

Playing this hyperactive hoops sim is like fast-forwarding your way through a Spike Lee–directed Nike commercial while beer-bonging a liter of Jolt cola.

Making a name for youself by climbing the game's Black List, aka series of bad-ass mo-fos you must beat, is good fun.

Unlocking new skins for the more than 40 available cars on the 90-plus tracks will keep you busy.

Once you tap into Xbox Live, you'd better get yourself an IV drip so you don't have to leave the couch…and a bedpan might be a good idea.

From the lush environments down to the rust on Optimus Prime’s fender, the graphics in Transformers are outstanding.

An ultra in-depth Dynasty Mode and online capabilities will keep you playing until NCAA 2006, or at least until the new Madden comes out.

Making a name for youself by climbing the game's Black List, aka series of bad-ass mo-fos you must beat, is good fun.

It's also a tiny bit dry for our tastes. We prefer laying rubber, doing donuts, and crashing into exploding oil tankers to finesse driving and engine tinkering, but that's just us.

The best boxing game in the business keeps getting better.

Nuanced controls like the Pure Swing System let you toggle the left thumbstick of your controller to dig out low pitches, reach for a hanging curve or, in our case, just fan the air where you thought the ball should have appeared.

Not for the timid, Psi-Ops features some flat-out nasty moments. Sneak up on enemies to drain their minds of psi energy and pop open their heads. Set some poor bastard on fire and he'll run around screaming.

Nuanced controls like the Pure Swing System let you toggle the left thumbstick of your controller to dig out low pitches, reach for a hanging curve or, in our case, just fan the air where you thought the ball should have appeared.

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.

Most of the levels will give you the heebie-jeebies. Even if you didn't have to worry about ambushes by Imps and commando zombies, the dark environments should be enough to creep you out. The game is pure science fiction, but the structures and equipment seem plausible.

This is the fourth game in the series, and it's definitely the biggest, ballsiest, most nonsensical Burnout to date.

The best boxing game in the business keeps getting better.