Pleasantly enough, Syndicate also takes a big step away from last year’s troubled Assassin’s Creed Unity by removing every whiff of online connected hooey. You’ll no longer be noodged to spend extra money, visit websites, or invite friends to activate missions. This is a solo game, and it’s perfectly content to be one.

The narrative missteps and overly complicated lore intrude on what should have been another shining moment for Master Chief; while it sets up an intriguing future, the campaign is an unqualified disappointment. But even the greatest of heroes stumbles, and Halo 5’s stellar online play is certainly strong enough to pick up the Chief and keep him moving.

Need For Speed’s solid driving and fantastic graphics are worth experiencing, but I wanted more darkness, more danger out of this game. I wanted consequences. Without it, we get an odd Need For Speed that presents a strangely empty, Disney-fied version of an “underworld” — one with guardrails on the sides of the road.

Black Ops III deserves credit for delivering a wider game than Advanced Warfare (or Black Ops II, for that matter), but it’s not necessarily a deeper one. More meaningful, fundamental changes to how we experience the game were passed over in favor of a maelstrom of strange new ideas. It’s just plain weird...I happen to like weird, though, and Black Ops III does enough to carve out its own identity.

It’s massive and compelling and at times boneheaded, but usually brilliant. Stylish, deep, story-driven, tactical, action-packed: Few if any games manage to be so many things at once, and despite some hiccups, Fallout 4 turns the end of the world into a real blast.

Rise of the Tomb Raider’s only real flaw is that it follows the template of the first game a tad too cautiously, right down to the tough-to-kill supernatural foes that populate its final act. It also completely jettisons the notion that Lara is reluctant to take human life, a decision that makes for grittier action at the cost of some heart and soul. But as only the second installment in Lara Croft’s reinvigorated career, there’s still plenty of time to explore new territory. The tomb raider has risen. Let’s see where she goes next.

An artistic triumph, Star Wars Battlefront poses a difficult question: Do features make a game? If they do, this one’s got problems. Stand Battlefront next to most other multiplayer-oriented shooters and you’ll find it lacking in variety and depth. But none of those other shooters let me blast Slave-1 out of the sky from the Millennium Falcon, or take out an AT-ST with a well-timed thermal pod, or block ten laser blasts and force push a stormtrooper into a pool of lava.

Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash is a reasonably solid game of arcade tennis that’s accessible for newbies, yet challenging enough to give more experienced players something to chew on. But despite the glitzy visuals, it’s a predictable serve that lands well inside the line, rather than a decisive, smashing ace. Tennis fans — and Matthew Perry — deserve a little more.

Prince of Persia's stunning delivery yields quite a few breathtaking moments. Flaws aside, credit this prince for breaking many of the rules his ancestor set forth some two decades ago. He's just not quite ready to wear the crown.

By and large, Shaun White Snowboarding is a fresh take on the genre. By adding a welcome dose of exploration to the tough-love simulation aspects of Amped, it presents a vision of the sport that is much closer to reality than the sparkly fantasies that have characterized snowboarding games since SSX.

Seeing the innumerable changes and tune-ups to the game engine and the rules, you get the sense that World of Warcraft is a finely-tuned machine that its makers just can't stop tinkering with in an obsessive effort to keep it fresh, relevant, and above all, fun. For now, mission accomplished.

Call of Duty: World at War is clearly one of the top games of this year, and a must have for any action gamer.

From the integrated, Ghost Recon-style info on your HUD to the third-person camera and voice command system, everything is designed to keep you right in the game with the squads on the front line. The strategy pays off, making EndWar a unique and challenging new weapon in the Tom Clancy arsenal.

Cap that off with a tournament-style four-player option that runs through competitive versions of a selection of the mini-games, and you're looking at a package that's an easy recommendation for gaming families.

Not only will you be glued to the game right up to the end, you'll go right back and play it through again just to see what consequences different choices will produce. Fallout 3 is a technical triumph, but more importantly, it's a beautiful piece of design, exploring the well-trodden video game ground of good vs. evil better than any other game to date.

We played with hardcore and casual rockers alike, all of which had loads of fun regardless of what songs we were playing. Whether you want a good time with friends or a tense battle of the bands, Guitar Hero: World Tour offers an unparalleled experience. Just check your ego at the door.

It's a lot like its hero: packed with character, impressively capable, and never puts a foot wrong. What higher praise for a licensed game is there than that?

The objective of Far Cry 2 as a game is to get out of the way and let you experience the game world. And there is no other game world quite like this one: haunting, spectacular, meditative, explosive, violent, and serene, all at once, and all in a mere shooter.

Whether or not you grab the new hardware, there is no question that the stand-alone Rock Band 2 game is worth its $60 price tag. Heck, you'd pay twice that just to download the 84 new songs; toss in the new online functionality, Battle of the Bands and the Drum Trainer and you get another desert island classic.

Spore takes so many risks and introduces so many new concepts, it's far more than the sum of its parts; it's video game history in the making. Join in.

Doing anything that gets you off the couch is going to help, and Wii Fit's more energetic minigames are ample to leave you out of breath. No, it's no shortcut to the perfect physique, but it sure beats another hour on a damn treadmill.

BOOM BLOX is so simple and its appeal so universal that we're hard pressed to think of another Wii game that can so effectively bring a room together... [it's] one of the most gratifying jump-in-and-play games you can get on the Nintendo Wii.

Although the joy of unfettered choice is already familiar to Grand Theft Auto players, GTA IV's realistic, wide-open world offers unprecedented opportunities for delightful mayhem, and a level of polish, detail and quality that's genuinely groundbreaking. What more could you want from the next generation?

The Command & Conquer series has a history of churning out solid expansion packs, and Kane's Wrath is no exception. Each side gets its share of love, the new units are thoroughly welcome, and the $30 price tag won't strain tax-time budgets.

Vegas 2 may be formulaic, but when the formula's still tastes great, it's hard to complain too much. Rainbow Six's action-movie realism and smooth look still make the game every bit as gripping as its illustrious predecessor.

Considering how much content you get before you ever even go online, this is easily one of the most generous, gratifying, and fun games you can get for the Nintendo Wii. Super Smash Brothers Brawl is nothing short of a smashing success.

Dismissing the game out of hand is easy: the plot is silly, the standard enemies don't vary much, and the level design amounts to little more than battle venues linked together with bland, featureless corridors and the occasional crap puzzle. But that'd be missing the point completely, and it only takes one hit to see why. Nail an encounter just right, ripping through your enemies with all the ferocity of a tornado in a knife warehouse, and you'll understand.

Not only is it accessible enough to recommend to the casual RTS player, it's got more than enough depth to please even the most propeller-headed of strategy nerds.