IGN

In an nutshell, Need for Speed World is an online racer masquerading as an MMO, where there is really very little player interaction at all. The open world is a glorified queuing system, and there is far too much grinding between upgrades, and far too little difference between the upgrades themselves.

Blizzard wasn't trying to do anything drastically different with StarCraft II. Much of the core gameplay of the original has been preserved, yet with plenty of tweaks, additional units and new abilities for veteran players to toy with and devise new approaches to competitive battles. Anyone intimidated by the notion of playing against live opponents will find a lot to enjoy, with a fantastically presented single-player campaign featuring impressively varied mission design supported by a memorable, though often cheesy, cast of characters.

BlazBlue: Continuum Shift might reuse a good deal of content from Calamity Trigger, but it's still a blast to play and there are a lot of welcome additions. New characters, stages, modes, and story are just some of the reasons why BlazBlue fans should consider dropping the money on this "sequel." I especially encourage gamers that have never tried BlazBlue to pick this up -- it's an excellent fighting game that shouldn't be missed.

If you draw even the smallest amount of gaming pleasure out of the genre, there is no reason not to download UniWar -- especially since the game is a steal. If you like games like Advance Wars, Military Madness, or StarCraft, there really is no reason not to jump on UniWar.

Conviction is a Splinter Cell game in name more than anything else. You could easily swap Sam Fisher for Jack Bauer or create an all new character and no one would give it a second thought. The gameplay is fast, and Sam has been transformed into the ultimate killer. It's an amazing game, but so different from its predecessors you might not recognize it.

N3II is like a friend who tells the same old stories over and over, only instead of finding this trait charming you can't help but loathe his inability to move on from the past. With its myriad of problems and creatively bankrupt game design, this "new" game feels like a retread from the moment you boot it up to the moment you chuck it into the garbage can in disgust.

Shooter devotees desperate to find something different this summer might be able to scrape out something of value in Sniper: Ghost Warrior, but even the most hard-up gamer would likely be better served looking backwards toward other, better executed titles from the last few years such as the aforementioned ARMA 2 or Operation: Flashpoint. Hopefully, City Interactive can bring something more fleshed out to the table next time.

It's mostly just more of the same, in the same city, with the same shortcomings and a slightly expanded set of missions. Crackdown 2 feels uninspired and rushed, and it certainly doesn't feel like a full sequel.

It features new campaign missions and a number of new toys to play around with, and is still an incredibly comprehensive war experience, despite its issues with performance and artificial intelligence. It's best played with others with the patience to appreciate how much detail has been packed in here, ranging from graphical fidelity to the sheer number of vehicles and weapons included and the way they all control differently.

If you've exhausted the library of stellar games that 2010 has already produced and are looking for something to help bridge the gap into this fall, Singularity isn't a bad choice. The gunplay is solid and there are a few memorable set pieces. It is a game ultimately limited by a lack of imagination where a neat time-manipulation idea is handcuffed to a by-the-numbers first-person shooter.