Where NBA Live offends most is sadly in its gameplay. A reviewer could literally fill an entire page of notes with criticisms of this nature.

The current-gen NBA 2K7 is a really good basketball title that looks great and plays even better. At $30, it's well worth picking up, even if it isn't a huge step up from last year's title.

It is once again the most solid, realistic, and kick-butt hoops game on the market. Really, the only debate is which version to get. If money's no object, pick it up on 360; it's easily the cream of the crop.

If you're a casual player looking to throw down like your favorite superstars, or you really loved last year's game, NBA Live is still the pick of the litter. More refined, strategy-minded tastes are again urged to go with the 2K series.

The current-gen NBA 2K7 is a really good basketball title that looks great and plays even better. At $30, it's well worth picking up, even if it isn't a huge step up from last year's title.

The game manages to achieve near perfection on every level, from technical to story to gameplay, and presents the player with an enticing world that is impossible to ignore. Even after completing the adventure, you'll be drawn back if only to take in the world.

Props go to Electronic Arts for trying to improve the game for its next-gen incarnation and, mostly, succeeding. This newly made man upholds a very fine, if very violent, family tradition.

Rocket Slime has a unique charm and gratifyingly relaxed gameplay, while its clever tank battle scheme gives this meringue-lite RPG some real weight.

Something of a guilty pleasure. Objectively, it's not a good game at all -- it's ill-suited to its platform, repetitive to the extreme, too easy, presented with little flair, and a mere shadow of the best that both Pokemon and dungeon crawlers in general have to offer. But it's still sitting there in our DS's slot, waiting for the next time we have ten minutes of downtime.

Comes over as something of a guilty pleasure. Objectively, it's not a good game at all -- it's ill-suited to its platform, repetitive to the extreme, too easy, presented with little flair, and a mere shadow of the best that both Pokemon and dungeon crawlers in general have to offer.

In Company of Heroes, destruction is a component of the game in a way that we haven't seen since "X-Com" let us root out sectoids by bringing down entire farmhouses.

Its enthusiasm is infectious and irresistible. Here's to hoping LucasArts keeps the spirit alive with, dare we hope, a "Lego Indiana Jones."

It's just as much fun now as it was ten or twenty years ago, and that's enough for us to crown it one of the most worthwhile multiplayer PSP games around. If you have friends, and at least some of them have PSPs, you need this game. It's that simple.

The story may be unique, but the overall game design, as represented by the combat model, is one characterized by laziness masked as tradition. It's accepted that survival horror has lame combat, boss battles and fetch quests, so Rule of Rose has all those things, too.

So while there isn't all that much on the menu, the fast-paced and simple gameplay can't fail to raise a smile, at least for the first few plays. Most will set it aside after that, but it's priced at a decidedly value-conscious $20 -- less than the cost of a good steak.

The idea of a pirate RPG with naval combat and basic economic functions is such a good one, but here it's largely obscured by the awkward interface, strange design decisions, and poor attention to detail.

Its enthusiasm is infectious and irresistible.

Its enthusiasm is infectious and irresistible.

Its control system is weak, the gameplay mechanics are basic and repetitive and The Rock is woefully underused.

Drive Unlimited has blurred the line between single and multiplayer gaming almost out of existence.

Yakuza also features one of the worst stealth-based sequences in all of video game history.

The LocoRoco world works perfectly. There are few examples of out of the box game design that are so well put together.

Its control system is weak, the gameplay mechanics are basic and repetitive and The Rock is woefully underused.

Its gameplay sacrifices and slightly stale taste make it no match for "Tekken: Dark Resurrection."

American role-playing veterans who aren't absolutely dying to do turn-based battles on their shiny new console are advised to wait for a true RPG killer app on 360 -- however long that's going to take.

Dance Factory is a clever concept, though it doesn't quite hit the bullseye. Its feature set would really do better on a machine with a built-in hard drive, so you could burn tracks to it instead of endlessly swapping out CDs. That said, it's still impressive what the game does with the PS2's memory and technology -- poor graphics notwithstanding.

Its uncompromising design could be perceived as lazy and frustrating or inspired, bold, and nostalgic, depending on your point of view.

Series fans -- and while it's a fine game, it's unlikely to appeal much to anyone else -- will lap it up, happy that such a well-loved saga is coming to a satisfying conclusion. What more could you ask?