Madden 10 eclipses last-year’s effort in content, realism and value. Gameplay? Well, that’s more of a wash when compared to last year, and gameplay holds a lot of weight.

What’s most interesting is that there’s little in Trials HD that hasn’t been done before in other games, but RedLynx made this one just so darn tight with its physics and humorous crashes and thoroughly engaging challenges that you can’t put it down.

One of the best XBLA hack-and-slash classics ever to grace Xbox Live Arcade.

Some might say that bashing this game is like beating up a paraplegic: just unfair. But I shudder to think that people will waste their money on this thinking they’re going to get a cute kids’ title that’s safe for the younguns to play. It’s not.

In the end, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra is like vanilla ice cream. It is fine for what it offers, but is plain and blah compared to what you could be having. Even for someone who didn’t get into the G.I. Joe fad, I didn’t expect to find a plain vanilla G.I. Joe.

Solid, and worth a look by both the experienced fighting game fan as well as those brawling neophytes.

It’s $60 hors d’ouvres passed off as a main course.

’Splosion Man is not for the weak, or the uncalloused of thumb. But if you do have the druthers to give it a whirl, you’re going to find yourself playing one of the most addictive and challenging games to come out on XBLA so far. To put it simply, it’s a blast.

What it seems to do, though, is do a decent job at portraying the movie to which it’s connected, which also is pretty rare in this industry. It’ll keep you engaged for hours (especially if you seek to get all of the achievements), though with a few bouts of overdesigned gameplay challenge to break it up, it’s not perfect.

This seems like an oasis of sparkling water to somebody who’s had to crawl through a desert of rock music. You can get some enjoyment out of the thought that your thirst will be quenched, but when you finally get there, it’s mostly a mirage.

For long-time fans, it’s a chance to relive a part of our childhood; for newcomers, it’s a chance to experience what so many of us haven’t stopped talking about for nearly 20 years.

At its very least, a very entertaining game with a tenuously attached license that few people probably care about. But at its best, it's an old-school type of shooter that rewards players hungry for beating their own high scores and those willing to try some very innovative multiplayer design.

NCAA 10 is the most complete and competent football game ever to be loaded into a Microsoft console.

Battlefield 1943 is truly a blast. Its stripped-down nature (though definitely not a no-frills release) means its easy to get into, and the high potential player count should have the servers filled with players for quite some time.

From the excellent blend of both arcade and pro-accurate MLB components, to the strength of the audio and graphics, The Bigs 2 is a player.

Worms 2: Armageddon is the complete XBLA answer to the franchise that fans have been waiting for. Worms 2 is also good enough for me to recommend it to new fans of the series; even more so than the free PC demos floating about in cyberspace.

KoFUM is still worthy of a solid score, due to the fact that it’s still one of the better pure fighters ever made, but it will be hard for casual brawler fans to realize its allure.

It has some really nice features, but for every nice one, there are an equal number of strange design choices or flaws.

The game is one of the better Westerns we’ve seen on a video game console, and while that’s not saying a whole hell of a lot when you put it into context, it should be taken as faint praise.

While its visuals are astounding and the fighting action nearly as impressive, Blazblue is special because it feels complete. Aside from its paltry online functionality, Calamity Trigger will constantly remind you that a smart investment was made in a title sporting a high degree of luster. In other words, you’ll get the sense that you got your money’s worth…even if you just got your butt kicked.

The dictionary defines “infernal” as “hellish, fiendish, diabolical,” as it should be, but it also has a definition of “extremely troublesome, annoying.” Unfortunately, Infernal lives up to both of those definitions all too well.

Even though Garou—Mark of the Wolves looks amazing (when taking into consideration the era in which it was released) and plays even better than it looks, there’ll be this feeling that you didn’t get that much value for your 800 Microsoft Point investment (or about $10).

Yes, Droplitz is an easy game that’s not all that easy.

An awesome, visceral experience, especially when enjoyed against a human opponent. It remains one of my personal favorites of the EA Sports lineup. I just hope that in the next iteration they can figure out where the magic went and infuse it back into the series.

A massive upgrade over the previous movie-based game in the series. So much so that it’s unfair to really even compare them. Despite some feelings of repetitiveness and a lack of polish in a lot of places, I feel like it’s my duty to commend Luxoflux for what it’s done: make a pretty good game that treats the license with the respect it deserves.

It’s very Diablo-like in its playability, in that it often throws a lot of opposition at you, but with a full complement of minions and a powerful weapon, you’ll usually cut through them nicely.

For fans of the Warriors series, DW6:E falls right in line with giving the hardcore followers of Omega Force exactly what they want. For general action/strategy fans, DW6:E marks a solid step forward in creating a more consumable form of the Warriors universe.

It’s just plain fun, with the presentation adding to the entertainment.