IGN

In New Vegas, the fun Fallout 3 formula is intact, with more polished combat, high-quality side missions, and the exciting setting of the Vegas strip. Unfortunately, the bugs also tagged along for the ride. If Obsidian and Bethesda had polished up the game by fixing the AI, improving the animations or even gotten it to run smoothly, perhaps it would feel less like a giant expansion of Fallout 3 and more like its own game.

Fallout: New Vegas is the game that many wanted Fallout 3 to be. It's harder, more ruthless, better written and more morally ambiguous. It's a game we&#A;rray;ve been wanting to play for more than a decade, a real modern re-imagining of the Fallout series, complete with that deliciously black humour. But it's also more of the same, aesthetically and technically identical to Fallout 3, wonky facial animation and all.

Last year's DJ Hero was a breath of fresh air for the rhythm-action genre. Even with its focus on solo deck-spinning, it was unique, exciting, accessible and, most importantly of all, hugely entertaining. With no arbitrary hardware upgrade to justify this time, FreeStyleGames has poured all its efforts into delivering a sequel that improves on the original in every conceivable way, from song roster to multiplayer to freestyle mode.

EA Sports MMA wrestles away the belt from the reigning champ with its stellar combat that feels much closer to the genuine article than what we've seen elsewhere. While its modes don't span the same breadth of other sports titles, it gets things like the international flavor of MMA and the raw nature of the sport down perfectly. Now if they can just refine the AI a bit and add some meat to the scope of the career mode, this one will transcend MMA games and could contend for a spot as one of the best sports games of the year.

The single player campaign is lengthy at around 14 hours with full co-op support and the multiplayer has plenty of maps and modes. Just do yourself a favor: buy some insurance for the controller you'll invariably throw across the room at one of Lost Planet 2's seemingly endless design and interface issues.

Vanquish is a stylish, spectacular looking game with great gunplay and some stunning set pieces. Although the game's story and character development pale in comparison to the action, I had a great time with Vanquish from the in-game tutorial all the way to the ending credits. Even though Mikami's latest creation is difficult at times, players looking for a highly entertaining shooter should look no further. Vanquish will keep you on the edge of your multi-thruster booster seat.

Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja: Storm 2 is one of the more gorgeous games I've seen in a long time. They've really captured the feeling of the cartoons, and playing the Adventure Mode -- at least in the less tedious portions -- feels like you're playing inside an episode of the anime. The fighting system is surprisingly rich; I just wish they'd unlocked the full character roster from the start. No one wants to buy a fighting game, invite their friends over, and then realize they need to play hours of the game just to get their favorite characters.

I personally am in the audience Kalypso is shooting for with the release of Patrician IV: I love business and economic simulations, and the interface in the sequel is much better than any of the previous entries. Furthermore, between the tutorial videos and added political and city building elements, it's a blast to play once. However, there is simply no reason to come back to it after one playthrough. It's disappointing for me because I want to love Patrician IV, but it falls short in far too many areas.

Pretty much anything you would expect to find in a Castlevania game is not to be found here. But fans of combat-heavy action adventure games will have fun if they can excuse a lot of mindless button mashing and a couple technical issues. The developers have successfully adopted ideas from several popular games (God of War, Shadow of the Colossus, Uncharted, Resident Evil) but that also means this isn't a very original effort. In the end, I'd rather play a more traditional 2D Castlevania game, but there is no denying that this is a beautiful and enjoyable change of pace.

Medal of Honor's real problem may be Danger Close's inability to commit to a particular direction for the game. Swinging wildly between the horrors and danger of war and unrealistic action movie moments and hampered by a surplus of boring scripted sequences, not even DICE's talented multiplayer designers are able to elevate Medal of Honor to something memorable.