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  • Clash of the Titans

    Months after slaying the Kraken on the silver screen, Perseus finally lands on consoles to hack harpies and slash scorpions in Clash of the Titans' game adaptation. Despite being yet another film-tied title, I had high hopes for this very videogame-y property. After all, I sat through the recently rebooted film thinking it'd actually be served better by an Xbox than the box office. Hell, the original film was, for all intents and purposes, God of War long before Kratos was even a stain in Zeus' robe. So why did this one leave me as stone-faced as Medusa's enemies?

  • Blacklight: Tango Down

    Some pretty divisive reviews about Blacklight: Tango Down have been posted since its release. Some gaming critics think it's a great effort from Zombie Studios, while others are calling it "frustrating" and "pretty damn miserable." I've been fluctuating between the two extremes during this time, and finally, I've decided which side I'm on: neither. I'm going straight down the middle here: Blacklight isn't as terrible as some critics have said, but it isn't without its faults. Still, I think the game has some merit.

  • LIMBO

    There are a lot of words I can use to describe PlayDead Studios' LIMBO - genius, eerie, and haunting, for instance — but the more I think about this incredibly crafted game, the more I realise that all those words simply don’t do enough to describe the essence and feel of this Independent Games Festival standout. More than anything else, LIMBO struck me as being wonderfully macabre. It seems almost obsessed with the idea of death, not as a punishment for failure, but as a necessary and inevitable tool I needed to inch forward through each difficult task. In one weekend, I’ve seen the nameless child hero of the game electrocuted, dismembered, ripped to shreds, drowned, and beaten to death, which would almost be funny if it weren’t so unsettling.

  • Monkey Island 2 Special Edition: LeChuck's Revenge

    Monkey Island 2 Special Edition is a textbook example of how publishers can pull old titles from their catalogues and make them relevant again. LucasArts has been doing this for a while now, giving Tell Tale Games the creative license to take franchises like Sam & Max to new places and, as is the case here with the Special Edition of Monkey Island 2, giving new life to classics by updating the graphics and features. But the true secret to their revitalisation efforts is that they manage to maintain the same charm and humour that made these titles so successful in the first place.

  • DeathSpank

    Born of a short series of Flash animations on GrumpyGamer.com, famed SCUMM adventure game designer Ron Gilbert's personal website, archetypal brawns-over-brains hero DeathSpank has never been in the business of taking himself very seriously. Cocky, dense, and strong-headed to a fault, the purple-thonged dispenser of justice would just as soon unintentionally doom the world as he would redeem it, and honestly, that's what makes him such a likable hero.

  • DeathSmiles

    There's a Japanese developer called Cave whom I've long adored that has very little presence outside their homeland. They're most known for arcade 2D scrolling shooting games -- but not just any shooting games: Cave specializes in the "bullet hell" subgenre, the sorts of shooters where enemies eventually start to fill the screen with multiple, multicolored barrages of deadly fire in crazy, intimidating patterns. Well-done art design, setting, and excellent music are also Cave hallmarks. Their games are considered AAA titles in the genre; it wouldn't be a stretch to call them the BioWare of 2D shooters.

  • Singularity

    Last summer, Activision released Raven Software's Wolfenstein with the sort of hype usually reserved for a straight-to-DVD Steven Seagal film. This past week they took a similar under-the-radar approach with the developer's new FPS Singularity. But a modest marketing budget isn't all these two shooters share in common. Both feature alternate histories, former US-hating international superpowers, and dangerous experiments that turn humans into flesh-eating crazies. Replace Wolfenstein's zombie Nazi's with irradiated Russians and you're half way there.

  • N3II: Ninety-Nine Nights

    For all the genius that's been achieved in the hack-and-slash genre with games like Bayonetta, No More Heroes, and Devil May Cry, I'm always baffled to see games like Ninety-Nine Nights II. While other titles in this increasingly crowded category manage to innovate with unique artwork, memorable characters, or a catchy gameplay gimmick, Ninety-Nine Nights II (or N3II) fails to accomplish the first two, and flops disappointingly on the third. Overall, the result is a mindless game that, to quote The Onion's Chris Dahlen, feels less like extreme combat and more "like mowing the lawn."

  • Crackdown 2

    For many, the only expectation that accompanied the original Crackdown was for it to be a half-decent shepherd for the Halo 3 multiplayer beta. Luckily, it ended up being an entertaining open-world game, truly conveying the sense of being a super-powered agent in an unruly city. While this summer sequel doesn't launch with the hype of a new Halo or Gears of War, it certainly arrives with the standard sequel hopes: for it to be bigger, bolder, and ultimately better than the original.

  • LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4

    LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 may be the first game to blend the escapades of the ever-popular youth wizard with the age-old plastic blocks, but it's the seventh such title to follow the exacting mould set by LEGO Star Wars, later replicated by Batman and Indiana Jones-themed iterations.

  • Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11

    EA's golf franchise hasn't faltered in years, and I'm certainly not calling out Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 for any grand deficiencies. It's undoubtedly a great game of golf, and taking my oddly attired player through the PGA Tour season has become one of my annual indulgences, even as my wife rolls her eyes at the satisfying sound of a well-hit drive. But by this point, we're all pretty used to what the series has to offer on this generation's controller-bound platforms (well, until PlayStation Move and Natal launch), and unlike Woods' personal life of late, Tiger Woods 11 offers few surprises.

  • Backbreaker

    When you chart the trajectory of their dominance over the past two decades, EA's Madden NFL franchise parallels the success of the NFL: Both are highly lucrative properties whose monopoly-like influence has been challenged with little success.

  • Green Day: Rock Band

    Even as a lifelong fan of the band, the existence of Green Day: Rock Band initially confused me. Punk rock is notoriously repetitive and Billie Joe Armstrong, while a popular front man, doesn't possess the same star power as John, Paul, George, and Ringo. The Beatles deserved their own Rock Band title because everyone is familiar with their music, which goes a long way towards making the game accessible; I played The Beatles: Rock Band with my mom, which says a lot.

  • Alpha Protocol

    After several years of development and a seven month delay, Obsidian Entertainment's ambitious spy-themed action/role-playing game, Alpha Protocol, is finally infiltrating consoles. The studio behind Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords and the upcoming Fallout: New Vegas have crafted this "Espionage RPG" with the goal of engaging gamers' minds as well as their trigger fingers. While the end result isn't nearly as successful as the similarly genre-mixing Mass Effect 2, those who can look past its many flaws will discover a satisfying better-than-the-sum-of-its-parts experience.

  • Blur

    I was a bit of a latecomer to the Mario Kart series, having skipped the original Super Nintendo release, but I played the N64 version with friends and family for what must have amounted to hundreds of hours. The venerable franchise is, without a doubt, the pre-eminent cart-racing entity, and over the years many companies have attempted to duplicate Nintendo’s success with middling results.

  • UFC Undisputed 2010

    Last year's UFC Undisputed 2009 was a surprise hit, not only garnering rave reviews from critics but registering monster sales numbers and helping to elevate the stature of the entire UFC brand. That's no small feat for a game that fans were sceptical of from the beginning; many of us wondered if a video game could realistically represent the sport in digital form. Many casual observers may think MMA consists solely of two people trying to pound each other into submission, but the truth is that the sport is incredibly complex.

  • Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands

    I've enjoyed all of the Prince of Persia titles that have been released thus far, but I feel like the series has been slipping down a slippery slope since 2003's imaginative reboot, The Sands of Time. Ubisoft took a big step backwards with Warrior Within, a combat heavy title that was unnecessarily "extreme," partly righted the ship with The Two Thrones only to dig the hole deeper with 2008's self-titled reboot.

  • Split/Second

    I'm not a big fan of simulation racing franchises like Gran Turismo and Forza because they require too much finesse and skill. I recognise the technical and aesthetic beauty of perfectly recreated autos as well as the thrill that comes from expertly navigating an S-curve, but all I want to do is sit back in the cockpit of an exotic sports car and mash the gas pedal with little thought to the rules of the road.

  • Red Dead Redemption

    Ahem. It's not often that a video game inspires journalists to recite hoary old poetry. Red Dead Redemption is one such exception.

  • Alan Wake

    Once a praised writer and notorious bad boy, Alan Wake retreats to the small pacific northwestern town of Bright Falls, Washington, to escape the big city spotlight and save his failing marriage. But what begins as a restful getaway quickly turns into a twisted nightmare: Wake's wife Alice goes missing and an entire week somehow vanishes in a blink of the writer's eye.

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