IGN

Heck, I'd be happy to see Tony Hawk 2 re-imagined for the new generation. I hope Neversoft is up to the challenge of making the Tony Hawk series brilliant again, because I still love the series. I just want my love to be justified.

While gorgeous, Days of the Blade hardly lets gamers play beyond, as it were. The additional characters and weapons certainly help, as does the flexible combat system. The game also offers amazing vistas and epic boss fights. Regardless of how someone dresses a corpse, though, it's still a corpse.

Gears of War is a must-have game, pure and simple. Epic has effectively created a new gaming universe, and the rich story of planet Sera holds its own with the likes of Hyrule, City 17 and the Mushroom-friggin'-Kingdom. A game so gorgeous, both visually and aurally, that is this fun to play comes along only a handful of times a console generation.

Anyone looking for a lengthy, complex, and engaging single player role playing experience should look no further than Neverwinter Nights 2. Thanks to the inclusion of fully controllable characters, there's plenty of enjoyable tactical combat to be conducted in the many dungeons the game runs you through. On top of that, there's an interesting storyline buffered by hours of fully voiced dialogue, an excellent soundtrack, good writing, and strong characters.

With its single player mode, Dark Messiah offers up plenty of action that eventually wears thin. It's still entertaining to kick around enemies and toss around parts of the environment though. There's a nice range of items to be found, all of which have an attractive appearance and occasionally an eye-catching glow. Some of the environmental textures are noticeably low resolution, but the excellent lighting effects help please your eye's unquenchable desire for beauty.

That's not to say it's bad; it's really not. But the lack of clothing options for human Sims and the lack of new, non-pet-related objects really hurts. As great as pets are in the short-term, they aren't and never have been the draw of the game. You'll be spending more time with your human Sims than your pets, so why must the entire expansion be geared toward the four-legged creatures?

This game is about gathering a few friends and laying the smack down on some villains. MUA is not a brilliant game, but it's fun. And that's all that really matters. If you love the pitter-patter of fingers on buttons, grab this game. It will satisfy the comic-book geek buried deep in your soul. Just make sure you use a controller.

F.E.A.R. is great experience that isn't without its faults. The repetitive environments and less than ideal online and multiplayer situations are a letdown, for sure. F.E.A.R. has made it from the PC to 360 with everything that made it an outstanding experience along with a few new additions including the fantastic Instant Action mode, making it hard to lodge any huge complaints against the game.

While there was a lot to love about the original Empire at War, there were some design decisions that left many gamers, including us, feeling a little dissatisfied. Petroglyph seems to have taken all of those criticisms to heart and improved on nearly every single aspect of the game. What's more, they've managed to make all the necessary improvements to the original design while still creating loads of entirely new content.

Overall, Railroads! is a fun experience that's suitable for anyone who likes trains and/or has fond memories of train sets. The challenges lay more in railway planning and competitive design than any hardcore economic simulations. Creating a rail network is simple as can be thanks to the intuitive track laying interface and supply chains are simple to figure out.