Considering Assassin's Creed Brotherhood as a total package, it's just barely worth full price. There's a decent quantity of content, but the amount that's recycled from the last game is stunning, a purely cynical ploy to squeeze out more money in lieu of preserving any semblance of artistic integrity.

Dead Space's atmosphere is brilliant, evoking nerve-wracking paranoia, but the gameplay is the same as many other previous games.

Dead Space's atmosphere is brilliant, evoking nerve-wracking paranoia, but the gameplay is the same as many other previous games.

No matter how much the games dresses things up, the endless battles get repetitive after a while. You're performing the exact same moves throughout the game.

Patapon is a clever spin on the rhythm genre, and the tiny characters are simply adorable. Leveling up your warriors can be quite trying, but the game's charm and refreshing adaptation of established mechanics make such transgressions forgivable.

Yes, it's true that at no time while playing Prince of Persia did I feel any of the frustration that I felt on a regular basis in "Mirror's Edge". But neither did I ever feel the joy of doing something right, of stringing together a perfect series of vaults and wall-runs and feeling like it was based on my own skill.

Were it not for the Nintendo DS' low-res graphics, Peggle Dual Shot might well be considered a definitive version of the game. Packed with a great deal of content, it's a great time-killer that can make hour-long bus rides pass in the blink of an eye.

In attempting to Sim everything, Spore tries to be all things to all people -- a strategy that never quite works out the way it's supposed to.

Bulletstorm is the world's longest dick joke...Despite the fact that it boots you out to loading screens every time you finish a segment or die, it's a polished-enough piece of work. The point system incentivizes you to play the game using all the tools at your disposal...It's just a shame the developers couldn't stop thinking about reproductive anatomy.

Bulletstorm is the world's longest dick joke...Despite the fact that it boots you out to loading screens every time you finish a segment or die, it's a polished-enough piece of work. The point system incentivizes you to play the game using all the tools at your disposal...It's just a shame the developers couldn't stop thinking about reproductive anatomy.

Part of the appeal of the Ace Attorney series is the "Eureka!" moment, that feeling of brain satisfaction that can only come out of solving a particularly grueling puzzle using nothing but your wits. Ghost Trick has no eurekas, only "Oh … is that it?"

The fact that Final Fantasy designers are so willing to experiment is a good thing, because it’ll keep the genre from dying off. But Final Fantasy XIII should be considered a failed experiment.

Gameloft's complete incapacity for gameplay innovation and penchant for annoying players into spamming their own Facebook accounts drags Asphalt 7 down, but I'd be lying if I said it's not the best arcade racer available for iPhone and iPad.

When presented with an infinite number of possible resolutions, any answer is going to feel arbitrary. Alan Wake starts strong but finishes weak; neither the gameplay nor the story deliver on their potential by the time the credits roll.

Brütal Legend does a lot of things wonderfully: It’s a technically adept, graphically beautiful game with a surprisingly good story and a great soundtrack. The hybrid gameplay just doesn’t meet these high standards.

I enjoyed Shooter 2 enough to recommend it, but I don't see myself replaying levels in order to find all the secrets, like I did for the first game. At least not without help.

Brütal Legend does a lot of things wonderfully: It’s a technically adept, graphically beautiful game with a surprisingly good story and a great soundtrack. The hybrid gameplay just doesn’t meet these high standards.

[Mario Kart Wii's Battle Mode] is no longer a last-man-standing contest: Matches now last three minutes each, and if your kart takes too much damage, don't worry! You'll just respawn. Even worse, all battles are now played in teams of two. So while you can still have four human players, they can't all face off against each other -- and what's the point of that?

It retains what fans love about the series and refuses to make any drastic changes. Long time fans will be absolutely ecstatic at this news, but for those of you who never got the appeal of Hot Shots in the first place, you certainly won't find it here.

EA Sports Active has its issues, but it’s a major step in the right direction.

Ultimately, the gameplay is a vast improvement over its predecessor, but the game is in most other respects dwarfed by more recent innovations in the genre.

In essence, if you're willing to suffer through some early balance issues, have a good guild to join and desire an MMO experience where you can kill other people to your heart's content, Age of Conan is the game for you.

It's tough to make the distinction between where Square Enix was deliberately preserving the game's nostalgic appeal, and where it was just cutting costs.

The elements added to Assassin's Creed: Revelations do make it feel like a more different and occasionally surprising experience compared to Brotherhood, which felt like an expansion pack. But at its core, we're still playing the same game for the third time.

I've never played anything quite like Red Steel 2, which lets you use swords and guns simultaneously, switching back and forth between wild swinging and precise aiming.

Banjo is what you get when you put a lavish coat of polish on nothing: A beautiful, funny game with a clever concept that is utterly lacking in fundamentals.

How much you enjoy this sequel will depend almost entirely on your feelings for the first Under the Knife. If it left you wanting nothing more than another set of operations to tackle, you'll be in heaven. If you were hoping for a vastly improved scenario, you're out of luck.

Unlike The World Ends With You, the under-appreciated Square Enix RPG for the Nintendo DS, Dissidia: Final Fantasy is unsuccessful in its attempt to fuse action and role-playing experimentation in a meaningful way. The pieces are all there, but the glue is too thin.

The obscure names and redundant dialog can reach levels of absurdity, and sometimes you'll want to yell at your characters to just shut up and get on with the adventuring, but the puzzles and presentation make the complex plot worth slogging through.

Bioware has stripped away the veil of grandiose adventure, and what's behind the curtain is a truly uninspired RPG.

The process moves at a snail's pace, with too much time spent in between the gem-matching fights.

Broken Sword is an excellent proof of concept. Yes, classic point-and-click adventures work very well on DS. It is also a funny, engaging game with a wide variety of puzzles, locations and characters. But it also spotlights the gameplay elements that adventure games of the 1990s could get wrong.

Playing Pocket Planes is like driving a car that steers itself. All I want is a wheel, NimbleBit. Give me just one tool that can be wielded in interesting ways to make an impact on the outcome of my play. I want the ability to play your game well, or play it badly. As it currently stands, the only choice you give me is to play Pocket Planes or not play it at all, and I'm going to take option B.

A giant leap forward for Sega's mascot. It represents the first time in more than a decade that I have enjoyed a Sonic game.

$20 might seem like a bit much for a little over five hours of gameplay, although there's a lot of content packed into this first installment: Four largish 3-D environments, a dozen or so main characters, and reams of funny dialogue.

Coordination between teammates seems to be pretty important, but otherwise I felt like each match hinged on whether or not teams could get momentum early and shut buy upgrades quicker.

I wouldn't unhesitatingly recommend Ring of Fates to anyone who's not already a genre fan, but if you're like me, you need to play this one.

If the goal was indeed to create a game that could appeal even to the rawest Transformers newbies, then High Moon has succeeded.

$20 might seem like a bit much for a little over five hours of gameplay, although there's a lot of content packed into this first installment: Four largish 3-D environments, a dozen or so main characters, and reams of funny dialogue.

A ballsy take on literature that worships at the altar of God of War.

The enemies just aren't clever enough to keep up with players in most situations, not to mention the number of times your computer controlled partner will inevitably get stuck behind a wall. Plus, the seven-hour campaign doesn't provide enough entertainment value without the added fun of multiplayer gaming.

But it’s a big game best taken in small doses: An hour or two of clamber up the side of a building, snipe some guys, drive like hell, lather, rinse, repeat was plenty. Any more than that and I started to think maybe the Nazis could just have France, if they wanted it so bad.

The combination of clever, strategic gameplay with hopelessly niche subject matter almost guarantees cult classic status for this one. But Political Machine 2008 is definitely worth playing, particularly if you're a fan of politics -- no other game to date better represents our embattled system.

It's all the more disappointing because you can see, mired in the boring levels and bad cameras, glimpses of fun ideas.

It does exactly what a game is supposed to: It entertains throughout its duration, it flexes the muscle of both the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3, and above all it squeezes your testosterone gland just enough to make the gaming experience enjoyable.

Never feels challenging, so it lacks exhilarating highs.

The enemies just aren't clever enough to keep up with players in most situations, not to mention the number of times your computer controlled partner will inevitably get stuck behind a wall. Plus, the seven-hour campaign doesn't provide enough entertainment value without the added fun of multiplayer gaming.

It does exactly what a game is supposed to: It entertains throughout its duration, it flexes the muscle of both the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3, and above all it squeezes your testosterone gland just enough to make the gaming experience enjoyable.

I wouldn't recommend that version of Sega Superstars Tennis to anyone who isn't a massive fan of the company. I had high hopes, but with so many simple yet crucial issues here, it looks like we're going to have to wait for the inevitable sequel before truly enjoying our trip down memory lane.

Although 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand has enough novel gimmicks in its shooting gameplay to keep things interesting, everything else is no better than average.

If Nintendo is serious about proving that its polished portable releases smoke competitors' cut-rate downloadable titles, the company should concentrate on producing games that last longer than a few hours.

It's all the more disappointing because you can see, mired in the boring levels and bad cameras, glimpses of fun ideas.

The concepts behind the new Bionic Commando are strong, but the moment-to-moment action just doesn’t deliver on the promise of how awesome it would be to have a grappling hook instead of a hand.

An interesting experiment? Sure. But the changes to the game design have all but removed the most-fun parts while emphasizing the game's weaknesses. Whoops.

No continues or saves, no level selection, weapons aren't balanced.

But even the best programming can't save this game from the flaws in its design. There's nothing horribly wrong with it, but it also fails to bring anything remotely new or original to the genre.

No continues or saves, no level selection, weapons aren't balanced.

At some point, you realize that looking back at each of Viking's qualities, it's hard to really put your finger on anything that's truly standout -- and yet it's compelling.

Deadlight isn't a poor game, just average. Mediocre. Inoffensive. If Deadlight developers Tequila Works developed another game with some more original ideas, I'd like to play it.

The other side of this coin is that Nier bites off more than it can chew: It wants to be Final Fantasy, God of War, Zelda, Monster Hunter and FarmVille all at once. And the problem with trying so many things is that every new feature you add is a new opportunity to screw the pooch.

I wouldn't recommend that version of Sega Superstars Tennis to anyone who isn't a massive fan of the company. I had high hopes, but with so many simple yet crucial issues here, it looks like we're going to have to wait for the inevitable sequel before truly enjoying our trip down memory lane.

I wouldn't recommend that version of Sega Superstars Tennis to anyone who isn't a massive fan of the company. I had high hopes, but with so many simple yet crucial issues here, it looks like we're going to have to wait for the inevitable sequel before truly enjoying our trip down memory lane.

In short, I was left wanting to know more. The fact that you can start a new campaign with your character and continue to level him up didn't really entice me back into Too Human -- I want more story. To that end, I'm looking forward to the promised release of "Too Human 2."

Better break-time puzzle rounds and a story that's not throwaway filler would make a truly excellent game; this is merely a fun diversion.

At some point, you realize that looking back at each of Viking's qualities, it's hard to really put your finger on anything that's truly standout -- and yet it's compelling.

The enhanced interface and new skill system make this 3DS version more than the sum of its borrowed parts. Given the choice between Mercenaries and Resident Evil 5's Mercenaries mode, I prefer the handheld version to its high-res but lumbering ancestor.

Wii Music is Wii's "Nintendogs." It's not a traditional videogame with challenges and goals, it's an interactive playground. While some gamers will "get it" and have some fun with it, they'll likely abandon it after a little while. Most hard-core gamers will stay far away.

But even the best programming can't save this game from the flaws in its design. There's nothing horribly wrong with it, but it also fails to bring anything remotely new or original to the genre.

If you're a Pokemon superfan, you'll undoubtedly enjoy chilling with the very creatures you've spent so much time trying to catch.

Gameplay is pure repetition; fun in short bursts but little lasting attraction.

If you're a Pokemon superfan, you'll undoubtedly enjoy chilling with the very creatures you've spent so much time trying to catch.

The best thing I can say about Overdrive is that it feels just like Blaster Master, with a few great new improvements and a few small new flaws.

Sea Life Safari is just plain short. After 3 hours of play, I had access to all of the levels, had captured every species of fish in my log book, and had unlocked every Achievement except the one for finding all of the golden shells in the game.

Even with the slightly below-average graphics, even with the blatantly swiped mechanics, even with the simplistic punch-kick-repeat gameplay, I still want to recommend Tokyo Beat Down. As with Operation Darkness, the title's story and writing are so different and original that I couldn't help but enjoy the game.

In attempting to create a sprawling action game that lets you play swordsmen and archers and wizards and scouts and trolls and Ents and Sauron, the developers failed to make any of those experiences much fun. Conquest might be worth killing a weekend with, and will probably find its niche with Battlefront fans, but it is lackluster at every turn.