The truly stunning thing about Persona 4 is that it just doesn't have any glaring flaws. Even though it doesn't stand up to the graphics of the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3, the clever art style makes up for that. Those who despise reading large blocks of text in games will be pleasantly surprised by the solid voice-over work applied to almost every conversation.

Spelunky is designed to be played repeatedly, a randomly generated battle of human versus machine. Its goal is to challenge the player in a way that is seemingly impossible, but ultimately surmountable given the proper amount of training and skill. I can't recall another game that achieves that delicate balance as well as Spelunky. Its randomly generated nature and ecosystem of interactive elements challenges your decision-making abilities in a way that's nothing short of awe-inspiring.

The most important change is that most everything feels new. The fights against giant boss creatures at the end of each dungeon don't rely on old ideas. The classic characters are replaced, for the most part, with novel ones. If you already know what's going to happen, is that really capturing the spirit of the original Legend of Zelda, in which we all went in blind? Skyward Sword shows that "a real Zelda game" is about more than certain items or certain gameplay rituals, which in the end is more meaningful than adding better sword controls.

Marvel vs. Capcom 3 can get complex, but it ramps you up with a smooth learning curve. I could feel my skills improving as I discovered more of the game's intricacies.

On their own, the adventure and puzzle segments of Henry Hatsworth would not be especially interesting videogames. But this experiment succeeds because of how well the two genres play off one another. While certain level elements can feel monotonous, the core experience is sound, delivering controlled chaos into the palms of your achy, sweating hands.

With Radiant Historia, Atlus has created the perfect blend of innovation and tradition.

It’s just a solid, addictive, finely polished game that’s easy enough for newbies and challenging enough for those who remember. Sometimes, they do make ‘em like they used to.

Despite minor quibbles about its online modes, Order of Ecclesia is a simply stunning handheld game. It ranks as easily the best portable game of the year and could very well qualify as the best Castlevania ever.

WIRED One of the best games ever, remastered; looks fantastic in 3D; improved controls. / TIRED It's the same game you played 12 years ago and remember exactly how to beat.

Even though I often struggled to find meaning within the game's mysterious world, Journey doesn't need to be explained. It's still a fulfilling experience.

Dokapon Kingdom's perfectly balanced multiplayer, cool aesthetics and pure addictive fun make it a new high-water mark for party games on the Wii.

Brawl isn't perfect. The single-player mode isn't nearly as polished and fun as the multiplayer. The disc is crammed so full of content that the loading times can get annoying. But it's still without equal -- can you even think of another four-player fighting game?

Weighed down by bloat though it may be, Batman: Arkham City is still one of the year's finest games, filled with the capacity to surprise even players who've skulked through every inch of its predecessor.

Most notably, the game design is innovative and daring, straddling a precarious line between 2-D and 3-D gameplay to make a game that feels contemporary while retaining the classic Metroid appeal.

Well-balanced, fun turn-based strategy gameplay perfectly suited to mobile devices.

While Killzone 2 does walk on mostly well-trodden ground, it does so with a keen attention to style and detail, pushing beyond the gray-and-red color schemes that define its competition while encouraging gamers to put a little bit of thought behind every bullet they hurl.

If you enjoy playing first-person shooters with a team of friends or even complete strangers, Left 4 Dead offers an unparalleled social experience. It can be frustrating at times when the team's actions aren't synced, or strategies continually falter, but a bit of practice and, more importantly, communication will transform this zombie massacre into one of the most exciting and addictive gaming experiences ever.

Gorgeous re-imagining of the original, lots of gaming for your buck.

A novel and original concept, executed cleanly and with style - in short, the ideal to which videogames should aspire.

Canabalt is my most-played iPad game by far. Its simple, fun concept distills platforming down to its bare essence of running and jumping.

There hasn't been a funnier, more singularly creative videogame since Brütal Legend. And where Double Fine disappointed some with odd game design choices, DeathSpank does nothing but please.

3D Land is a grabby borrower of a game - enemies from Mario 3, music from 2006's New Super Mario Bros., gameplay from Galaxy. Eventually it starts borrowing from itself. It's an excellent game because all of these things work so well together; the only thing keeping it from perfection is that it cries out for more innovations to call its own.

There hasn't been a funnier, more singularly creative videogame since Brütal Legend. And where Double Fine disappointed some with odd game design choices, DeathSpank does nothing but please.

The moments when Modern Warfare 2 isn’t good are few and far between. That’s about all you can ask from a hero.

You can beat the entire main story of Fallout: New Vegas in less than 20 hours, but that would be giving the game short shrift. It is really about savoring every little detail and side quest until you've seen everything there is to see.

Donkey Kong Country Returns is the best 2-D platform game I've played in ages. Its level design meets the gold standard set by the 2-D Mario games. Retro Studios can add another feather to its cap.

The first Assassin’s Creed had a bold, brilliant concept; the sequel delivers the execution.

Its blend of action, strategy and atmospheric tension perfectly complement the film series it's based on. Assault on Dark Athena sets a new standard for games based on films.

Electronic Symphony's best new feature is the ability to sort your favorite tunes into a specified order and play them straight through. Or you can have your favorite song run on an endless loop and relive that moment of pure ecstasy, where it's just you and the music.

Endless depth, gorgeous graphics, excellent polish for a new MMO.

While it gives players that quintessential amped-up FPS experience, it isn't doing anything especially innovative or new. The firefights are intense, the pacing will keep you on the edge of your seat and quite a few scenes prove absolutely breathtaking, but the game's chief strength is the story that binds it all together, and the multiplayer modes that should keep us amused for quite some time.

Much like the original, it will be played for years to come. And that's why it lives up to all the anticipation.

Braid is so much more than just another XBLA release. What you're paying for is a groundbreaking title that offers several hours of pure game enjoyment. Buy this game now, and experience some of the best this medium has to offer.

From the war-torn home world of the lizardlike krogans to a planet so wracked by radiation that stepping out of the shade will eat away at your shields, the galaxy feels more lovely, lurid and dangerous this time around.

Bastion's fantasy world doesn't feel derivative. Its world and characters are all its own, and the narrator's verbal descriptions of abandoned quarries, forsaken gods and terrifying fortresses breathe life into them.

Portal 2 is in the business of defying players' expectations. Valve never wants you to predict what's going to happen at any moment, and delights in subtly setting those pins up and knocking them down. Even more than the clever gameplay mechanics and sharply written story, the smiles and laughter that such a carefully crafted game can extract from you mean this one will stay with you for years to come.

The game's audio is phenomenal. Throughout the game players are treated to a combination of Japanese-style blues, pop, techno and rock. Even those who have become tired of Japan's trademark stylistic alterations to American media will find the variety of tunes appealing.

If you or your kid loves to play open-ended games like Minecraft or create inspired Lego creations without instructions, the Variety Kit is a great way to go.

You won't find endless fun here, but you can play around for many hours before feeling like you've mastered the game.

It was one of the best cooperative experiences I've ever had in a video game, and I don't even know who those people were. I've made my concerns about the storytelling in this game clear, but maybe that's not as big of an issue. I came away from Diablo III with a great story to tell, one of my own making.

Rhythm Heaven Fever boasts a staggeringly extensive soundtrack of catchy tunes covering an array of different genres, from head-pounding rock to way-too-sweet pop, everything with a distinct Japanese style. Kicking back and listening to the music is the single biggest stress reliever when you're getting frustrated by the high difficulty.

Simply the most reliable gaming purchase you can make this holiday season. No other title will offer more content for the price.

Rock Band 2 is a massive bullet-point list of new features, each of which makes playing the game a little bit more fun, a little bit less annoying. MTV has played it very safe: It has not broken anything, but neither has it taken any great risks to add any feature that is mind-blowingly new, the way it did when it added drumming and vocals to Guitar Hero in the first place.

Gorgeous re-imagining of the original, lots of gaming for your buck.

Rhythm Heaven is exactly the sort of novel, deep, challenging game that people accuse Nintendo of not creating anymore. Play it.

It's a challenging game, too. I've logged enough hours in strategy games to qualify as an officer in certain South American militaries, but the last few levels of Adventure mode and many of those Puzzle mode levels require intense concentration and genuine skill.

This should serve as a reminder that a strong license shouldn’t be a millstone around a game designer’s neck but a gold mine, a vast stockpile of prebuilt characters and relationships that, properly tweaked, can work just as well in a videogame as they do in a movie or comic book series.

BioShock 2 may be a clever spin on the are-you-good-or-evil convention, but it falls short of its predecessor by not breaking free of it.

Gorgeous re-imagining of the original, lots of gaming for your buck.

Simultaneously more and less than its predecessor. It expands and elaborates on the gameplay in unpredictable ways, but the last one felt like a bigger, more complete adventure. That said, better core gameplay with less window dressing is infinitely preferable to the reverse.

New Super Mario Bros. Wii is an excellent game with friends, and I had a great deal of challenging fun with the solo mode. But if you’re looking for a new Mario adventure that’s tailored to creating the maximum amount of fun for just one person, you’ll have to wait for next year’s Super Mario Galaxy 2.

The game completely lacks scary moments; there is nothing going bump in the night. Actually, most all the levels take place in the daytime. They are very pretty levels, yes, although the RE5 team hasn't yet learned the tricks of the trade that other developers use to seamlessly blend them -- there are lots and lots of loading screens.

Despite the clunky menu system and nearly useless real-time combat options, the biggest complaint I can level at Fallout 3 is that it isn't by the original developer, Interplay. But since we'll never see that game, Bethesda's take on the series is a very acceptable substitute.

If Wii Sports was the Pong of our day, Wii Sports Resort is the Super Pong machine with color graphics and handball and hockey modes: Some of it is superfluous, but it’s worth the upgrade.

It's another three or four hours of solid entertainment.

For all its undeniable polish and fun gameplay, Mario & Luigi is starting to feel less like a clever bridging of the gap and more like an indecisive straddle. It’s time to rethink the Mario RPG.

The game isn’t about slavish devotion to original recordings. It’s about the power of the DJ to transform.

Dead Space 2′s final chapters seem like an endless string of featureless rooms filled with monsters. Some wonderful moments emerge that make it a must-play, especially since the game wraps in less than 10 hours, but the last act seems rushed.

I wish I could recommend Sleeping Dogs with no reservations. The story is excellent, the gameplay has flashes of brilliance and the mission structuring makes it rather addictive. It's hard to ignore all the little problems that keep presenting themselves, but not one of them is troublesome enough to make you stop playing.

The campaign mode is a fun, lengthy, well-polished experience. But the reason most people pick up a strategy game in the first place is to meet new and interesting people and crush them mercilessly.

Yes, it feels pretty much exactly like 2005′s Mario Kart DS with better graphics. But it's still too good to put down.

Condemned 2: Bloodshot has plenty of creepy moments, but it favors action over atmosphere. To that end it performs very well, and even throws in some juicy plot twists and a cliffhanger ending. But I miss the tension of the original, just the same.

The original Gold and Silver are getting a bit long in the tooth, but a decade of extra gameplay polish makes HeartGold and SoulSilver extremely appealing. The games are next-gen nostalgia done right.

And I fail to see how the all-important menu that lets you reassign the buttons on your controller could have been designed to be less intuitive. You'll be using that a lot, too, especially if you buy an arcade-style joystick — which I cannot recommend strongly enough, especially if you have an Xbox 360. The console's default controller is absolutely infuriatingly useless for this game.

Boom Blox does what so many Wii titles wish they could, by splitting the difference between casual players and lifelong gamers. You can pass the Wiimote to your grandma or a 5-year-old and they'll have a ball with its clever mix of brainy puzzles and satisfying explosions. But hard-core players like me will find a surprising amount of depth to the gameplay and a satisfying, addictive challenge.

While Diabolical Box’s gameplay, animation and plot are quite a bit like its predecessor’s, slight improvements make this installment of the Professor Layton saga even more enjoyable than the last.

Those thrills, ripped straight from summer blockbusters, tend to be both Uncharted 3's biggest strength and biggest flaw...Drake's Deception never lets up on the action, and it has an obsession with constantly one-upping itself. Before the end of the game, you will have escaped from a burning building, outran a massive wave of water aboard a sinking cruise ship and traversed a seemingly endless desert...These segments are thrilling, heart-racing stuff, but predictable.

But I was pleased to discover at least one genre of music that fits in surprisingly well with all the limitations of the system: classic videogame music.

A contemporary classic — but not necessarily in a good way. Yes, slightly antiquated design elements like health and armor packs give it a familiar feel. And quite a few genuinely scary moments are guaranteed to make you feel a little silly for being so freaked out. But the game tries to be too many things at once, and the transparent, jarring transitions from horror to next-gen action sequences break the otherwise carefully executed atmosphere.

Wii Fit feels very much like a version 1.0 trial run that's going to be made obsolete by a better sequel in six months. For now, it's absolutely worth giving it a try if you have a Wii, $90, and some extra pounds to lose.

Kratos' latest action-packed journey across the tales of Greek myth has lightning-fast pacing, designed to keep you addicted straight through to the end with tiny loading times in between. The problem is that you come upon the end of the game very quickly, way before you want it to be.

The translations are occasionally botched. In two instances, the cheat codes were incorrect. This, plus the fact that some of the challenges send you back over territory you've already covered, keeps the game from achieving true retro perfection. It's still awesome, and a must-play for fans of the NES era.

Peggle Nights, like its predecessor, is extremely polished, challenging and fun.

Condemned 2: Bloodshot has plenty of creepy moments, but it favors action over atmosphere. To that end it performs very well, and even throws in some juicy plot twists and a cliffhanger ending. But I miss the tension of the original, just the same.

The one major qualm I have with the game is in its voice acting.

Pokémon is a series that never reinvents the wheel, but instead continues to polish the basic design until it sparkles.

Pokémon is a series that never reinvents the wheel, but instead continues to polish the basic design until it sparkles.

A tumultuous blend of Prince of Persia-style jumping action and the "bullet hell" of insane shooters like Ikaruga. It's complex, difficult and a lot of fun.

Doesn't take gamers anywhere as exotic or over-the-top. And that's its charm. The realistic setting and complex control scheme make for an engaging single-player experience, but it's the wide range of online multiplayer options that make Skate gleam the cube.

Mark of the Ninja is easily one of the best Xbox Live Arcade games of the year. In a time when no one thought they wanted another stealth game, Klei Entertainment surprised everyone with a truly wonderful one.

But If you're willing to put in the time to learn the game's nuances however, and don't mind losing days of your life to faux interstellar conquest, Sins of a Solar Empire is easily the finest game to hit PCs this year.

The original Gold and Silver are getting a bit long in the tooth, but a decade of extra gameplay polish makes HeartGold and SoulSilver extremely appealing. The games are next-gen nostalgia done right.

Case Zero does a fine job of illustrating the tension between the pure fun of offing the undead and the time-sensitive tasks that Chuck must accomplish to get his daughter her medicine.

100 Rogues is the most user-friendly roguelike game - a type of RPG where dungeons are randomized, death is often permanent and movement is turn-based - I've ever played.

The game's menus are clunky, which gets annoying since you're constantly going in there to tweak your button settings and check the list of special moves. A menu will often tell you to press the A button to confirm your selection, but pressing it does nothing.

The fighting stays fast-paced and engaging because you must constantly issue new orders.

Clever deduction sequences, likable characters, some of the best writing in videogames.

Even without a story to speak of, Etrian Odyssey II does exactly what it was meant to do: It provides a ridiculous level of challenge coupled with weeks, if not months, of classic gameplay to an audience who still desires that sort of thing.

Witcher 2's technical and design glitches didn't stop me from thoroughly enjoying the game, however. It's one of the most realistic role-playing games I've ever tried - just like in real life, the decisions you make have wide-ranging effects, and you won't learn what those are until much later.

The game delivers the same grizzled, gore-laden action we've come to expect, and it does it extremely well -- but it's as if the original Gears has gotten a face-lift, and been expanded upon, without much real change.

But like a jazz-master bringing new life to an old standard, or a Jazzercise-master making leg warmers fashionable again, Bloons TD 4 transforms the familiar into something fantastic. If, like me, you've wandered away from the tower-defending fold, this might be just the thing to bring you back.

The camera angles could have been placed better. The characters could have been more developed...But damn is it fun.

The team at Kojima Productions has at the very least set a new high-water mark for cinematic presentation that I wager any other videogame will be lucky to reach, let alone exceed, for the next few years.

That's all Max Payne 3 is – a beautiful, playable action movie.

It's done some brilliant things with its genre to create a brand new experience, but no game mode aside from team deathmatch is well-balanced or interesting, and there are precious few maps.

Much like Sony's Heavy Rain, L.A. Noire is a game you simply must play if you are interested in the development of storytelling in videogames. Also like Heavy Rain, the gameplay occasionally struggles to walk the tightrope between being robust enough to hold up the story but easy enough that the player doesn't give up halfway through.

Gorgeous, Beatles-themed graphics make the game more than just a list of songs, although the short track list (and some questionable song choices) keep it from being the perfect Fab Four experience.

Like a window opened just a crack, a tiny aperture that occasionally allows vivid glimpses of the future of videogames. When Heavy Rain works its magic, it is powerful stuff; rarely have I felt so attached to game characters or so invested in a story. For those small moments, anyone who cares about videogames must play Heavy Rain.